PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — From the seat behind a desk clear of clutter, Mets general manager Billy Eppler inched forward, his eyes alert as he spoke. For the last 20 minutes of this conversation in his spring-training office last week, Eppler carried his typical calm, friendly tone. Then the topic shifted to the constant dialogue he shared with owner Steve Cohen during the most active winter in franchise history. Suddenly, he was talking demonstratively.
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Eppler mentioned “Thinking in Bets” by Annie Duke, a book about making decisions, which he called one of his favorites. Duke, an accomplished poker player, wrote the book for people like Eppler, folks at the controls of major operations who are comforted by the idea that even the best calls don’t always yield the best outcomes. People like Cohen, a hedge-fund manager, comprise the target audience, too. Operators of both worlds wager in high stakes.
“I’m making bets on this side and he’s making bets on this side,” Eppler said, his hands gesturing and his voice rising. “So when we talk probabilistically, he gets it. Like, he’s got it. Then his questions become really advanced.
“That’s what makes the phone call exciting. This is not going to be a one-way conversation with me saying, ‘Hey, I’d like to do this.’ It’s more like, ‘Let’s talk about the probabilities and band of outcomes here.’ ‘Let’s talk about the opportunity cost here.’ ‘Let’s talk about what the alternatives are.’ Then it’s, ‘Let’s talk about the farm system.’ And then, ‘Let’s think probabilistically about all these things and model this out.’”
I get stimulated in those types of conversations.”
In the offseason, the Mets conducted business like the player at the poker table with mountains of chips in a game with no limits. Most times, they acted aggressively. Other times, they passed. Always, they loomed as a threat. The money belonged to Cohen. The recommendations on how to play every hand derived from Eppler.
No team in all of baseball influenced the market more than the Mets. By the end of arguably the most critical winter in franchise history, the cost of winning totaled approximately $445 million, including penalties for exceeding thresholds, which would be a record for a luxury tax payroll. The Mets signed 10 players to major-league contracts, tying a franchise high for a single winter. For good measure, they executed a few trades, too. Every move was guided by a process. All baseball executives lead busy lives packed with pressure. Then there’s Eppler.
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“And I’m telling you, he thrives on that,” one longtime agent said. “Billy is from California, but he’s back home in New York. The man grinds. In my position, I respect that. I’m not certain he slept over the winter.”
Before detailing from his perspective what it was like to experience the Mets’ offseason, Eppler, 47, offered a preface in a serious tone. “I’m very grateful for my family’s support,” he said. Eppler and his wife, Catherine, have three children: 8 years old, 4 years old, 22 months old. They’ve been married for more than 15 years. Eppler has worked in baseball for more than 20. They know MLB’s calendar and its demands. Still, even with all that knowledge, Eppler deemed it necessary to alert his wife of what was to come.
On the night of Nov. 24, shortly after Thanksgiving dinner ended, Eppler shared with his wife a premonition: “Hey, it’s going to really speed up. Like, really, really speed up.”
For Eppler, the thought lingered heavily. It was more than a suspicion. By then, the Mets had already discussed trades with teams and extended offers to players. Because so many of their own players had reached free agency, the Mets’ depth chart looked bare. For the Mets, the vacant job of co-ace alongside Max Scherzer was advertised in neon.
Several veteran agents said they appreciate that Eppler tends to work with discretion. He knew that at least two marquee starting pitchers were readying to make decisions — and thus ignite the market — because he had worked quietly behind the scenes to deal with each of them. On the morning of Thanksgiving, Eppler reminded members of his team that a text message could come at any point. Once the dining room table cleared, the only person beyond his inner circle that Eppler tipped off was his wife.
For a couple of weeks in November, Eppler juggled concurrent conversations with Mark Pieper, Justin Verlander’s agent at ISE, and Stephen Veltman, Jacob deGrom’s agent. The situation required a delicate approach. For as much as Eppler’s job involves scouting and numbers, the gig comes down to relationships. It matters how he deals with stars and their representatives. If Eppler handled things poorly — for instance, if he had offered one pitcher and then rescinded based on a call from the other — then missing out on a legendary starting pitcher would’ve been just the beginning of the issues he’d face in the future. Good luck getting some big-name talent to call back after that.
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Eppler went out of his way to avoid such pitfalls. During his first offseason press conference, Eppler described deGrom as a “future Hall of Famer.” After building a résumé over nine years with the Mets worthy of being called one of this generation’s very best, deGrom deserved some level of respect. As a courtesy, Eppler told Veltman that the Mets were talking with somebody else. This way, in the event of deGrom bolting, the Mets would be positioned to move aggressively with Verlander.
Meanwhile, Verlander’s camp granted Eppler room to maneuver. “You have to make a run at deGrom; he wore that jersey and Justin never has,” Pieper recalled telling Eppler. “We totally understand that. We are not offended by any means that you have to try.”
Explaining the situation months later, Pieper said, “The communication was very open.”
That planning came into play on the evening of Dec. 2, when Eppler learned along with everyone else that deGrom, a franchise icon, planned to sign with the Rangers. Texas announced its five-year contract with the star right-hander. But by then, both Eppler and Cohen had already met with Verlander.
“We got to the point where Jake made his decision and we were already positioned, well down tracks also in our conversation with Justin where it wasn’t, ‘Oh, hey!’” Eppler said. “It was total, transparent, upfront, no games, straightforward, here we are.”
The day after deGrom signed with the Rangers, a Saturday, Eppler joined Verlander for a lengthy video call. The next day, Eppler and Pieper corresponded via text throughout their flights to San Diego, the site of MLB’s Winter Meetings. Pieper agreed to meet at Eppler’s hotel room first thing Monday morning.
Inside the room, it was just Pieper and Eppler talking. While some numbers may have been floated around previously, they didn’t exchange serious dollar figures until that moment. “Wait, wait,” Eppler would say to Pieper, before placing a call to Cohen. Pieper then would step aside and call Verlander. On it went. After meeting the Mets, Pieper had planned to see other teams. It wasn’t even 9 a.m. yet before those other visits became unnecessary.
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“We didn’t want to let him leave the room,” Eppler said. “So we didn’t let him leave the room.”
Throughout Eppler’s conversations with Verlander, he would tell the likely future Hall of Famer and AL Cy Young Award winner, “Hey, we’re going to keep coming.” The sales pitch was designed to emphasize that the Mets were far from done with landing key additions. Also, they were rooted in reality; at the outset of the offseason, New York needed to replace nearly its entire pitching staff because free agency had created holes almost everywhere.
When Eppler surveys his major-league depth chart, he also looks at players from Double A and Triple A. Ahead of the offseason, Eppler posed a question to his scouting department, analytics department and player development staff. He also sought input from the major-league coaching staff, which is not a given in other front offices around the league. He asked each group, “We have a lot of things to solve for here. What do we feel inside of our system we have the best chance to provide the major-league team: Offense or pitching?”
They answered the way many would after scanning the Mets’ farm system. Position players like catcher Francisco Álvarez, third baseman Brett Baty and corner infielder Mark Vientos reside atop the team’s rankings and could impact the major-league club in considerable ways in 2023. But the Mets do not have pitching prospects who possess both elite talent and readiness for the upcoming season or even the next. So, the Mets made their offseason priority acquiring more pitching.
One major exception proved to be the Mets’ homegrown center fielder, Brandon Nimmo.
In a typical year, Eppler doesn’t like to leave the hotel room at the Winter Meetings. In December, however, he didn’t have much of a choice. “I couldn’t have left if I wanted to,” Eppler said. “We were flying.” That week, the Mets signed Verlander, traded for reliever Brooks Raley, picked reliever Zach Greene in the Rule 5 draft and signed starter Jose Quintana, a series of moves indicating that the Mets would be operating with urgency.
Still, by the time Eppler boarded a return flight to New York, work remained. The Mets needed to re-sign Nimmo. In 2011, the Mets plucked Nimmo out of Wyoming with the 13th pick of the draft. For years, Nimmo battled to shed labels such as “injury-prone” and “fourth outfielder.” Now, fresh off a healthy and productive walk season, he appeared at the Winter Meetings as a gem, a two-way standout center fielder in a market devoid of them. The Mets talked publicly about alternative plans in the event they couldn’t re-sign Nimmo. Truthfully, they feared the possibility of losing him.
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That Eppler couldn’t talk in the air did not prove to be a deterrent. On a three-way text thread with Cohen and Nimmo’s agent, Scott Boras, the parties hashed out an eight-year, $162 million contract to keep Nimmo in a Mets uniform. Eppler said 90 percent of the work on the deal took place over text before his cross-country flight touched down in New York.
So it went all throughout the offseason. Eppler’s phone buzzed at all hours. Sometimes it was Cohen, excitedly authorizing a deal and saying, “Go call him!” Sometimes it was an executive from another team checking in on a prior trade conversation. Sometimes it was a player with good news.
Before making a decision on where he’d pitch as a 30-year-old rookie from Japan, Kodai Senga visited with a handful of teams. The star pitcher wanted to experience several cities. Among others, he toured Seattle, San Diego and New York. In mid-November, right around the time Eppler was courting Verlander, Senga showed up in Manhattan for a meeting with the Mets.
Those close to Senga suggested early on in his free agency that New York was viewed as a prime candidate to land him. Senga preferred a big city and Eppler’s background in scouting players in Japan stood out. For years, Eppler had eyed Senga. Now, the Mets’ brass considered Senga the missing impact starter for their rotation. In Senga, they saw someone who grinded his way through Japan’s rigorous developmental league to become somebody. “He’s a New Yorker,” a Mets official said at the time. Eventually, Senga told them so himself.
At 11 p.m. on Dec. 10, a Saturday, one of Senga’s agents texted Eppler, “Could you do FaceTime?” When Eppler answered the incoming call, Senga appeared from Japan and said, “Let’s go Mets.”
Ultimately, Eppler won’t be judged on making the call to re-sign Nimmo or to sign Verlander. Most scrutinized will be decisions like the one to sign Senga, where the probabilities feature wider ranges and the forecasts appear cloudier. Eppler relies on his team. When comparing two players, they examine productivity and availability, with money often acting as a separator. Before arriving at an answer, he polls the lieutenants in his front office, loops in manager Buck Showalter and checks with other major-league coaches. The common process includes messaging someone like Showalter or pitching coach Jeremy Hefner a list of three names in the middle of the night. He’s seeking an independent opinion.
“A lot gets asked of them,” Eppler said of his front office. “They should be recognized for what we were able to do.”
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If things go awry with a player added during the offseason, no fan will blame an assistant general manager or director of player personnel. As the person in charge, Eppler carries that burden. These days, with the Mets, it’s an especially heavy load. Not many fans will care if a certain move was the right thing to do at the time despite a bad outcome. But Eppler seems to get that, too. Those who have worked closely with him say he’s comfortable with all that comes with being a baseball executive in New York, that his time as pro scouting director with the Yankees under Brian Cashman during George Steinbrenner’s reign prepared him well for what he’s encountering with Cohen’s Mets.
While Cohen said Monday that he’d continue to spend heavily if it increased the Mets’ chances of winning, he also added, “Ultimately, I want to develop a farm system and lower our payroll to something more reasonable.”
In the context of Cohen’s comments about payroll, Eppler said, “It’s not limitless. It’s not without end, right?”
One day in mid January, Eppler was asked how his offseason went. He quipped, “You mean winter?” The sheer number of transactions may not always reach what they did over this past winter. However, the stakes around the Mets remain high. Since Cohen took over the Mets in November 2020, his actions have supported his stated desire of winning a World Series and soon. The excitable back and forth exchanges during phone calls between Eppler and Cohen about high-end talents will likely continue.
During the final hours of Nov. 5, just as the Astros began the kind of World Series victory celebration that has eluded the Mets since 1986, Eppler and Cohen jumpstarted the offseason by agreeing with Edwin Díaz on a record-setting deal for a closer. On Jan. 18, the Mets completed what would be their final major-league acquisition by signing outfielder Tommy Pham. In between, the failed negotiations for Carlos Correa hijacked both the sport and the front office’s bandwidth. In the end, the Mets emerged with a roster fit to contend for a championship. As one Mets official put it, “That was one hell of a 10-week run or however long it was. Whatever it was, I know it was nuts.”
In early February, Eppler enjoyed a trip out of the country with his family. Finally, it was time to lay low for a bit. Around the time pitchers and catchers reported, Eppler arrived in Florida for spring training. Inside his office at Clover Park last week, two blue scooters were folded atop a brown cardboard box bearing his last name, all letters capitalized, in black ink. The box, he said, contained his kids’ stuff: skateboards, baseball gear and clothes.
Last weekend, Eppler’s family joined him in Florida. Just ahead of their arrival, a reminder flashed on his iPad as he sat at his desk. After chasing flashy talent all winter, he was now tasked with paying for something quite bland. The reminder alerted him that he needed to rent a minivan. “I don’t know about you, but I love them,” he said with a wide smile. Eppler’s family will stay with him for two weeks. Once they leave, only a few more weeks will remain before the results of Eppler’s busy offseason begin to show.
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For the Mets, it’s a deep-playoff-run-or-bust kind of year. Some around the club say so. Everyone around the club knows so. That’s part of why Eppler likes it here, those who know him well say. In an alternative world, maybe he never gets this shot. Maybe the Mets don’t face as much front-office turnover or fail to reel in first choices for the job. But for as deep as Cohen’s pockets go, maybe the Mets don’t look quite this promising without Eppler. Facing intense pressure, Eppler drew from all his experiences — his time as a scout, his tenure as GM, his years on Earth — to lead one of the most consequential winters in franchise history. Now, one of its most anticipated seasons awaits.
(Top photo of Billy Eppler, right, with Justin Verlander: Rich Schultz / Getty Images)