For better or worse, these 3 Mets can help save Billy Eppler’s GM job

Firing Billy Eppler has been a talk amongst New York Mets fans for weeks now. The underachieving ball club is not only out of the playoff race but fighting to get back to just .500.

This season has all of the markings of a potential “blow it all up, start anew” with the club dealing away several of their impending free agents and making a front office splash by bringing in David Stearns in the offseason. Eppler’s job should be in jeopardy right now. Maybe one of these three Mets can help save it.

1) NY Mets manager Buck Showalter can help save Billy Eppler’s job this season

Nobody may be able to single-handedly do more to save Eppler’s job than the manager, Buck Showalter. He’s fighting for his own job although it’s probably far less likely the Mets fire him than Eppler. Unless Showalter and the Mets mutually agree to part ways or they finish with the worst record in the National League, Showalter staying for next season seems very likely. Baseball is, unfortunately, not as much a results-driven business as much as it is about the process.

How’s that working, Philadelphia 76ers?

It’s Showalter who will have to eat the Mets’ team record most. Even though he doesn’t grab a glove or bat or throw a ball in the game, he’s the one who gets a tally mark for every win and loss. A massive turnaround by the Mets is in the hands of the players most. However, if Showalter can somehow summon more life out of this crew, he may inadvertently help keep Eppler around a little longer while doing himself a lot of favors to stick around, too.

Many fans have already turned on Eppler completely and a strong finish won’t change their minds about his future. What if certain players step up and help pad Eppler’s resume?

3) NY Mets pitcher Jose Quintana can help save Billy Eppler’s job this season

Hopefully not the Jed Lowrie of Eppler’s tenure, we have yet to see Jose Quintana actually appear in a game. He’s still in the recovery process from a preseason injury. Fears of a repeat of what happened with Carlos Carrasco in 2021 are all too real, especially when we’ve seen just about every starting pitcher on this staff underperform. Maybe only Kodai Senga has met expectations depending on what you thought of him.

Yes, it’s ultimately Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander whose job it is to uplift this team and carry them to the playoffs. Anybody could have paid them. They were moves made more by Cohen than Eppler. 

Quintana was more of a straight-up general manager signing. Hoping to capitalize on his 2.93 ERA effort in 32 starts last season, Eppler inked the veteran lefty to a two-year deal worth $26 million. So far, so nothing.

A monstrous finish out of Quintana might be the perfect excuse, even if the Mets do miss the postseason, for Cohen to wonder how things could’ve been if Quintana didn’t get hurt. It’s farfetched to put so much faith and reliance in one pitcher who has spent most of his career being pretty average.

After the St. Louis Cardinals acquired Quintana from the Pittsburgh Pirates last year, he made 12 starts and went 3-2 with a 2.01 ERA. If this is what the Mets get out of him, Eppler’s going to have another argument on his side.

There will be a ton of factors in deciding whether or not Eppler is the man for the job. Notably, is he the key to signing Shohei Ohtani or will a giant stack of Benjamin Franklin do the trick? Cohen hasn’t shown himself to be overly reactionary with the organization. We’re still getting to know him. The Eppler decision will be one of the bigger choices to make.