Grading Billy Eppler and the New York Mets front office at midseason

By this midway point of the season, New York Mets general manager Billy Eppler probably has some questions to answer. Here’s an intriguing one: How do you parley having $100 million more in financial resources than any of your competitors into a fourth-place standing?

Eppler has experience in that respect. As general manager of the well-heeled Los Angeles Angels between 2016 and 2020, he signed Justin Upton, Shohei Ohtani and Anthony Rendon and re-signed Mike Trout for 12 years, yet only once brought his club home higher than fourth.

But is it fair to blame the Mets disappointing 36-45 record on Eppler and the Mets front office moves?

Grading the New York Mets at the midway point of the season

What follows is a mid-term assessment of Eppler’s personnel decisions since the conclusion of the 2022 World Series with a particular focus on the extent to which those decisions have helped or hindered the Mets’ performance.

The standard of measurement in Wins Above Average (WAA), a variant of Wins Above Replacement (WAR). For this purpose, WAA is preferable because unlike WAR, it is zero-based. That means the sum of all the decisions made by Eppler impacting the 2023 team gives at least a good estimate of the number of games those moves have improved (or worsened) the team’s status this season.

A team’s front office impacts that team’s standing in five ways. Those five are:

1.       By the impact of players it acquires from other teams via trade, purchase or waiver claim.

2.       By the impact of players it surrenders to other teams in those same transactions.

3.       By the impact of players it signs at free agency or extends.

4.       By the impact of players it loses to free agency or releases.

5.       By the impact of players it promotes from its own farm system.

Here’s how Eppler stacks up by those five yardsticks.

Free agency

Everybody understands that Eppler’s offseason bread and butter was the free agent market. He signed, re-signed or extended 20 players, 17 of whom who have seen time with the Mets.

Many of the names are readily recognizable. AL Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander was signed for three seasons at a cost of a little more than $121 million. Eppler got Kodai Senga out of Japan for six seasons at $90 million.

Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo both re-signed, McNeil for $64 million through 2027 and Nimmo for $158.5 million through 2030. Gary Sanchez came, stayed a week and was jettisoned when his defensive inabilities showed through.

Eppler also signed Diaz for $121.5 million through 2028, that signing coming before his World Baseball Classic injury.

The disheartening aspect for Eppler has to be that despite all that cash outflow, production has been close to ordinary. As a group, those 20 signings have generated 1.3 WAA to the Mets’ cause; barely more than one full game of value.

Eppler also let 10 players leave either by release or through free agency. For the most part, those 10 (and this includes Jacob deGrom to Texas) have not been missed. Their collective impact on their new teams amounts to -1.9 WAA … so Eppler avoided a lot of trouble in cutting ties. The exception has been starter Taijuan Walker, who caught on with the division rival Phillies and is 9-3 with a 3.93 ERA. That boils down to +1.1 WAA.

Farm system

In the high finance world of Mets baseball, farm system products tend to get crowded out by what are considered more proven commodities. In his first season as Mets general manager, Eppler only produced one player with a positive WAA, and that was Clay Holderman, who was promptly dispatched to the Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen.

A half-dozen rookies have been given a shot so far in 2022, but none have graduated to significant roles. In fact, only two remain with the big league club today.

Those two are touted catching prospect Francisco Alvarez and infielder Brett Baty. Both have theoretical chances to become Eppler’s second (and third?) productive farm system product, but both have rough edges to be hewn.

Called up in early April, Alvarez (-0.1) shares the catching duties with veteran Omar Narvaez. He’s only hitting .217, but he’s a plus catcher defensively, although he hasn’t yet developed the ability to thwart base-stealers.

Since Eduardo Escobar bombed, Baty (-0.2) is getting regular time at third base, where his lack of experience has showed. At bat, he’s in the .240s, so there are growing pains there as well.

Three rookies — Josh Walker, Stephen Nogosek and Jose Butto — have been called up as needed to fill temporary gaps in the bullpen.

Overall

For all the money Eppler spent over the winter, the most productive thing he did was take out the trash. His composite grade is ordinary save for that fourth category, free agents lost. That category encompasses 10 players who either voluntarily left or were dismissed, then caught on with other teams and generally stunk.

Dominic Smith (-1.3), who has been an albatross in Washington, is one of those 10. Others include Chris Bassitt (-0.6 in Toronto) and Joely Rodriguez (-0.6 in Boston).

Here’s the first-half report card on the Eppler front office. Note that grades for players departing the organization are based on the reverse of those players’ WAAs with their new teams.

Mode                    WAA                   Grade

Acquired              +0.3                      C

Traded                  +1.2                      D

Signed                  +1.3                      B

FA Lost                 -1.9                      B

Rookies                -1.4                      D

Overall                 +0.9                     C

Eppler has made 40 personnel moves since the end of 2022 involving a player with 2023 major league experience. Those decisions have split slightly against him: 16 in Eppler’s favor, 18 against him and six neutral.

The data shows that despite New York’s present desultory record, Eppler has technically improved the talent base this season … just not by very much. Beyond that, as previously noted, that “improvement” involves players who have contributed to Eppler’s score by their absence rather than by their presence.

In fairness to Eppler, it should also be noted that the biggest failures on the Mets roster involve players signed previous to the 2023 offseason and, in several cases, prior to Eppler’s arrival. There are nine players on the current Mets roster whose deals were signed by Eppler’s predecessors, Sandy Alderson or Brody Van Wagenen. The collective impact of those nine players on the team’s 2003 standing is -1.7 WAA.