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Mets Monday Morning GM: The 3 baseball crimes of Billy Eppler
By Tim Boyle
Billy Eppler was placed on the ineligible list through the 2024 season. The reason stems mostly from his misuse of the IL. We all observed how conveniently New York Mets players would get hurt last year to open up a roster spot. But it’s not just them committing this crime. It’s an open secret how fugazi this punishment is.
A handful of players I spoke to about MLB's investigation into Eppler agreed "every team does it" – as in, fabricates injuries – and they were both interested and confused as to why the league was only scrutinizing one team's GM. https://t.co/v7O1kVJaZX
— Deesha (@DeeshaThosar) February 9, 2024
Are the Mets being targeted? Does MLB need to do something to fix this problem? Sports have some weird rules about roster construction. A healthy scratch system like the NHL has could help rectify the phantom IL stints somewhat. However, there’s always going to be someone to bend the rules in their favor much like Eppler apparently did.
Let’s not work on fixing the game we all love right now. Instead, let’s take Billy Eppler to trial and charge him with three counts of baseball crimes against the Mets.
3) Billy Eppler is guilty of arson on the DH
This crime has a lasting effect on the Mets. The last two months of 2023 was the time to figure out the future at the DH spot, or at least whether or not Mark Vientos was the right choice. The Mets successfully got him into games at third base for a large part of August while Brett Baty attempted to get his swing in order down in Triple-A. When Baty returned to the majors, Vientos continued at third base while also getting a few more starts at the DH spot.
It was handled much better in those final weeks although a little too much Daniel Vogelbach (any Daniel Vogelbach was too much, frankly) did take away some of those much-needed at-bats from the kids. Eppler’s real crime stems back to the previous season when he continually committed arson on the DH spot as a whole.
The long-running true crime drama of the 2022 season was focused on who the DH for the Mets would be. The planned rotation of players such as Robinson Cano, J.D. Davis, and Dominic Smith at the start of the season only got worse after the trade deadline. But more on that later. It’s connected to another major crime of Eppler.