Amid a tough losing streak for the Mets – which reached seven-straight games after a 14-7 drubbing on Friday in Pittsburgh – general manager Billy Eppler gave a vote of confidence to the team’s coaching staff and manager Buck Showalter.
“We have an experienced coaching staff and we have confidence in them,” Eppler told The New York Post’s Joel Sherman, who noted the GM used coaching staff to mean the in-uniform staff including the manager.
“That isn’t an acknowledgment that everything is fine. But it’s an acknowledgment that we have the personnel to get this right,” Eppler told Sherman prior to Friday night’s game. “There are things that are not going right that we need to address. Offensively at times, defensively at times, base running at times, pitching at times. But making changes for the sake of making changes isn’t going to deliver us our desired outcome.”
After Eppler made those comments the Mets lost their seventh game in eight days in a contest that featured a rough outing from starter Taylor Megill and an “unacceptable” defensive miscue in a five-run third inning by Francisco Lindor.
In his conversation with Sherman, Eppler would not provide insight on how Mets owner Steve Cohen views the season.
SNY MLB Insider Andy Martino wrote that fans waiting for a bombastic move from the owner, who declined comment before Friday’s game, will have to wait a lot longer and “if Cohen ever were to fire a GM or manager, he would not do it because of a disappointing series.”
Eppler said he wouldn’t separate his evaluation of the manager from the rest of the staff, according to Sherman, and offered his support for the coaching staff, “I believe in the experience and the track record.”
Does Eppler feel he is on the hot seat? “My focus right now is on our baseball team,” he told Sherman.
Martino reported Friday that during the tough week for the ballclub, Eppler and Cohen have been “Speaking frequently but rationally while trying to figure out what is going wrong and how they can fix it.”
The general manager wasn’t willing to talk about specific players with Sherman and said the underlying data remains solid for most veterans who are currently performing below their norms.
“As a baseball operation, both on-field and off-the-field personnel, our job is to help get our players back to the best version of themselves, and ideally to optimal,” Eppler told The Post. “And it’s my job to continue to look for pieces that can help both internally and externally. And it’s the job of our coaches to get the players prepared to play, to support them and to optimize them. And that’s where our focus is right now.”
Despite having played over one-third of the season already, Eppler expects players to return to their normal level unless there is for some reason a “material change in the player… through the metrics that drive performance,” which he said includes swings and misses, loss of exit velocity, and a change in the trajectory of batted balls.
Eppler did discuss one player, left-handed hitting DH Daniel Vogelbachwho came to New York in a trade last July, but has struggled to hit for any power, slashing .203/.343/.297 with an 82 OPS+ in 143 plate appearances this year.
“Daniel’s working extremely hard at getting the ball off his bat at his accustomed trajectory,” Eppler said. “He is in the top four or five in exit velocity on our team, but he’s not getting the trajectory that he has had in the past and so that is a point of emphasis for him.
“But he has a track record dating back to 2017 of hitting right-handed pitching. So we’re supporting him, we care about him. And we’re doing everything in our power to get him feeling right and he’s very committed to it.”