Billy Eppler was officially introduced as the Mets’ new general manager Friday, and not long after his intro press conference wrapped up, he joined owner Steve Cohen on WFAN’s Moose & Maggie Show, both making their inaugural appearance on the FAN airwaves as Mets representatives.
And, like the two both expressed in the actual press conference (part of which was carried on WFAN), you can expect the Mets to be aggressive in free agency and the trade market this winter.
“You can look at the free agent list and I’ll leave the interpretation open to how people value it, but a lot of those agents are going to hear from me very shortly,” Eppler said. “The trade market too, as I like to stay active in that, so I will be reaching out to see what availabilities are there. We’re going to look under every rock and see what we can find.”
They now truly can be, as finding a general manager was step one in the offseason process, especially important with the potential of a work stoppage coming when the CBA expires in two weeks, and after a search led jointly by Cohen and Sandy Alderson, the owner is happy with the end result.
“It was clear that the depth of his knowledge, his ability to talk about all aspects of the game, and his ability to communicate – as a leader, that ability is important – were some of a lot of great qualities,” Cohen said of Eppler. “He’s a very likable person, easy to get along with, and someone with experience who is highly regarded in the game. Once we got to know each other, it was clear he was the guy. We were very methodical and got to the right place. It’s hard to say what will happen (before Dec. 2), but Billy will hit the ground running; we’ve done some preliminary work and we’re ready to go, and we’ll see what transpires.”
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Cohen is also happy with the timeframe the Mets were able to make the hire in.
“I have this day job, right, so clearly Sandy setting it up and doing all the preliminary stuff so I could use my time efficiently was important – it was a major time-suck!” Cohen joked. “But I’m really happy where we ended up. In my business, to find a senior executive like this might take six to nine months, but in baseball, if you don’t do it in a few weeks, you’re a slacker.”
Cohen has already told Eppler he’ll have all the resources he needs to get the job done this winter, noting that the team’s finish last year “didn’t leave a great taste in my mouth” after the Mets spent much of the summer in first place.
“We’re already at 185 (million dollars in payroll), and we need pitching – which is already pretty expensive – and probably some people in the outfield, so we’ll have to open up the pocketbooks and be able to spend for the right player,” Cohen said. “There’s no hard number; we’ll have to gauge it, but we have to spend this year, and I’m committed to that. We want to put the team in position to be playoff bound. We’ll have to build a strong roster, and that will cost.”
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As always, Cohen is the one who has to say yes to the cost, but it’s going to be Eppler who, in terms he doesn’t necessarily want to use, will have the final say on the recommendations.
“I don’t know if that’s the way to frame it because you have dialogue, where you’ll present evidence and rationale, but at the end of the day, when I talked to Steve and Sandy, it was conveyed that if you show the rationale behind a transaction, absent of anything financial, we’ll give you that runway,” Eppler said.
Step one, or perhaps step “whenever we get the right candidate,” is hiring a manager, and that will be a very collaborative process.
“I have a sense of what I would like to see in a manager, but I’d like to sit with our senior baseball ops group and re-connect with Steve and Sandy and get a sense of what criteria they think is important,” Eppler said. “I alluded to this, but whether it’s in-game tactics, connectivity to fans and media, leading inside the culture…I want to know, how would you weight them? I think in-game tactics is important, probabilistic thinking and the ability to see the game – I always people, would you rather a manager be an expert in poker or chess? – but I want to sit with everyone and get their input.”
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From there, well, Eppler’s biggest hope is building a roster that doesn’t leave him in a bad spot, like he was in with the Angels due to other restrictions and issues beyond his control.
“We had a number of season-ending injuries when I was there – I think we had four or five Tommy Johns, maybe even six. That was tough to endure when we had a bottom of the barrel farm system,” Eppler recalled. “When I first got there, they were ranked 30th, and had been in the bottom bunch before I got there. That does expose you when you have injuries and you have nowhere to turn. We’ll be able to address this roster through free agency and the trade market, and make acquisitions that reinforce depth, because in navigating that 162-game season, you need a lot of players.”
And if all goes well, perhaps, as Alderson mentioned in the intro presser, the Mets won’t need to make a hire above Eppler’s head as a president of baseball operations level, and let him run the show. That’s been a tough sell in the job market the last couple years as is, but Cohen reminds that it’s not as easy as it seems.
“There are restrictions. We can’t just go talk to people and offer them jobs; I don’t know what happens elsewhere, but we want to be highly respectful of the rules,” Cohen said. “Plus, you might have certain names in mind, but you haven’t met them yet and it doesn’t mean they’re interested, or that they don’t have contracts you need to respect. You can’t have those conversations unless you follow the right procedures. It’s a little bit of a maze to go through.”
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