{"id":63127,"date":"2023-10-05T17:01:14","date_gmt":"2023-10-05T21:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=63127"},"modified":"2023-10-05T17:01:14","modified_gmt":"2023-10-05T21:01:14","slug":"mets-general-manager-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/10\/05\/mets-general-manager-resigns\/","title":{"rendered":"New York Mets General Manager Steps Down After Two Seasons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/09\/19\/mets-star-closer-wont-pitch\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Mets<\/a> announced Thursday afternoon that general manager Billy Eppler has resigned. The first move of the David Stearns Era led <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/10\/01\/mets-part-ways-buck-showalter\/\" target=\"_self\">to the firing<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/showabu99.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Buck Showalter<\/a>. Stearns&#8217; next two biggest decisions involve him finding a new Mets manager and general manager. It comes as a surprise especially since Eppler was in attendance for Stearns&#8217; introductory news conference Monday. Everything seemed safe until it wasn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">NEWS: Billy Eppler has resigned as Mets GM, the team announced.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AnthonyDiComo\/status\/1710027197862264985?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 5, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Stearns will inherit two assistant general managers Ian Levin and Ben Zauzmer, both of whom predated Eppler&#8217;s tenure in the organization. One of Eppler&#8217;s major hires was Jonathan Strangio, the senior vice president of baseball operations.<\/p>\n<h2>Mets General Manager Out<\/h2>\n<h3>Eppler Out After Two Seasons<\/h3>\n<p>Eppler was hired by the Mets in November 2021 after he was fired as general manager of the Los Angeles Angels. He got a four-year contract to become the 16th general manager in Mets history and their fifth head of baseball operations. Best of all, Eppler helped sign big-name free agents including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/scherma01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Max Scherzer<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/v\/verlaju01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Justin Verlander<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sengako01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kodai Senga<\/a>. Then he went on to re-sign <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nimmobr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brandon Nimmo<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=diazed04,diazed03,diaz--005edw&amp;search=Edwin+D\u00edaz&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Edwin Diaz<\/a> to big contracts.<\/p>\n<p>The 48-year-old Eppler oversaw five consecutive losing seasons as the Angels went 332-376 under three managers. That also came with a cast of supporting players behind <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/troutmi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Trout<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ohtansh01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shohei Ohtani<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/pujolal01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2023-10-05_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Albert Pujols<\/a>. Despite the losing, Eppler boasted a previously barren farm system with several prospects who made an impact on the big league level.<\/p>\n<h3>A Short Tenure in Queens<\/h3>\n<p>Even with the lockout interrupting much of the 2021-22 offseason, the Mets did well with a 101-61 record. It was the second-highest win total in Mets&#8217; franchise history. However, New York still had to settle for a wild card spot after losing the NL East crown to the Atlanta Braves on a tiebreaker. The Mets playoff run quickly evaporated following a three-game loss to the San Diego Padres in the NL Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New York Mets announced Thursday afternoon that general manager Billy Eppler has resigned. The first move of the David Stearns Era led to the firing of Buck Showalter. Stearns&#8217; next two biggest decisions involve him finding a new Mets manager and general manager. It comes as a surprise especially since Eppler was in attendance [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":63128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1071,22],"tags":[625,1515,3154,1931,247,79,248,2178],"class_list":["post-63127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-mlb","category-mets","tag-albert-pujols","tag-brandon-nimmo","tag-buck-showalter","tag-edwin-diaz","tag-justin-verlander","tag-max-scherzer","tag-mike-trout","tag-shohei-ohtani"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}