Overlooked NY Mets connection helps the Freddy Peralta trade package make more sense

A big hat tip to Reviewing the Brew for their levelheaded, honest, and fair take on this week’s New York Mets-Milwaukee Brewers trade. They’re feeling the pain while revelling in the fact that they were able to acquire two really good prospects for their popular ace.

While performing their autopsy on the trade, they looked at two of the overlooked aspects of it. Chief among them was a connection between the Mets and Brewers that goes beyond David Stearns.

Off of his 2024 suspension for questionable use of the IL in 2023, Billy Eppler was hired by the Brewers as a special advisor. Certainly not the lead voice as far as transactions go, it doesn’t hurt that he drafted Jett Williams in 2022 and twice, first in 2022 before he signed and again in 2023 when he did.

Former Mets GM Billy Eppler will get to enjoy two of his better draft picks with the Brewers

Eppler and Sproat were apparently destined. In only two tries to build the Mets farm system in the draft, he tried to nab Sproat. The uniqueness of drafting the same player twice in consecutive years and actually getting him is notable. To then acquire him via trade after one year in an advisory role with a different ball club makes this a match we can’t deny.

All of the discussions have been about how Stearns will take from the Brewers whatever he can. It’s the fact staring us in the face. However, while he had a connection to Freddy Peralta, he only knew Myers during his months in an advisory role for the Brewers after stepping down as GM following the 2022 season. For Milwaukee fans, it was a year that felt a lot like a mix of the 2025 Mets and the first 6 weeks of the offseason. Falling short of the playoffs by a game and the midseason trade of Josh Hader didn’t help Stearns ride off into the sunset; he was given a mule and a day’s worth of rations plus a stick to defend himself against the wolves.

Major League Baseball is a game of relationships and connections. Eppler is surely happy to have received Williams as well, his one first-round pick panning out in the Mets system. Fellow 2022 first-rounder Kevin Parada has spent much of his minor league career receiving criticism while the 2023 pick, albeit much further down the draft board, is a strikeout machine at the plate. Colin Houck is progressing but has a lot of catching up to do.

Maybe it’s not the Stearns-Brewers connection that’ll get any future deals done but rather the one between Eppler and the Mets which can carry the ball from the one-yard line. Trevor Megill is probably the next most sensible player traded to the Mets if at all, just not until this summer or next offseason. An Eppler draft pick, or even some of the prospects acquired at the 2023 trade deadline are the ones to keep an eye on. Not many are left anyway.