Mets Monday Morning GM: Putting all the faith in Billy Eppler

Billy Eppler made one trade deadline mistake. It wasn’t necessarily failing to add more than Mychal Givens to the New York Mets bullpen. It was his comment that the early read on the market was there would be a lot of relief pitchers available which made trading Colin Holderman for Daniel Vogelbach a reasonable deal.

Vogelbach has been a crucial addition to the Mets roster so, at least in that regard, it has worked out for Eppler. He still has a bit of egg on his face—maybe just some yolk dust—in regards to those comments he made prior to the trade deadline passing.

We can score the trade deadline, rate the moves, and analyze every number possible. Everything can be interpreted differently. The one thing we’ll all have in common is the faith we’re putting in Eppler that what he did will work.

NY Mets fans gotta have faith in Billy Eppler until results say otherwise

Until the results on the field tell us the Mets were a trade deadline disaster, we need to believe in what Eppler did. Without the inside knowledge to actually know what it would have cost to land some of the desirable Mets trade candidates, we can only assume the asking price was too great for many of them.

Eppler had already won fans over with the offseason additions he brought to the ball club. Name just about anyone he brought in. Other than Eduardo Escobar, it’s fair to say everyone has met or exceeded expectations.

The one weakness has been the bullpen. Chasen Shreve and Joely Rodriguez were a poor combination to have as the lefty duo in relief. Perhaps with the three-batter minimum rule the front office in Flushing feels it’s not as necessary to overpay for a southpaw. Maybe just having a righty that can retire batters from both sides is wiser to have around.

For any player, coach, or general manager, it’s the results that determine whether they did good or bad. Sometimes there is luck involved.

Eppler doesn’t seem like a short-term option for the Mets front office. After all of the craziness in 2021 between Brodie Van Wagenen and Eppler getting hired, it’s nice to have some stability or at least the belief that things will remain consistent.

Most importantly, the Mets have a GM whose decisions have yielded some great results.

There are many reasons why Mets fans aren’t planning any vacations for October and it’s not just because they used up all of their PTO in July. Eppler’s decisions have led to some high hopes for the hometown fans at Citi Field.