The Hot Stove season marks the beginning of a new campaign, as MLB teams look to either build off of a successful season or try to hit the jackpot with a huge free agent addition that elevates the team to another level. Alas, the New York Mets find themselves in a position of wanting to sustain last year’s 101-win performance and deciding whether it’s worth it to fork over millions to aging, if elite, veterans to meet that goal.
And it appears as if Mets GM Billy Eppler is ready to move fast in free agency, especially as teams line up to acquire the services of Jacob deGrom, who has been nothing short of elite since bursting onto the scene in 2014.
“If anybody wants to turn this into NBA free agency or NFL free agency, I’m all for it, all for it,” Eppler said as he burst into laughter, for SNY.
“If anybody wants to turn this into NBA free agency or NFL free agency, I’m all for it”
– Billy Eppler when asked about being aggressive in terms of getting deals done quickly and out of the gate pic.twitter.com/Xev2qDLQys
— SNY (@SNYtv) November 9, 2022
NBA free agency is notorious for having deals lined up the moment agreements between teams are allowed. At 6 pm ET on June 30, insiders Adrian Wojnarowski and Shams Charania immediately tweeted out breaking news regarding player movement, hinting at the fact that teams and players are already negotiating among themselves way before the permitted date.
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Nevertheless, NBA free agent contracts cannot be finalized until the league’s moratorium period is lifted, which has led to some shenanigans over the past years, most notably when DeAndre Jordan reneged on his agreement with the Dallas Mavericks and Marcus Morris did the same with the San Antonio Spurs.
Eppler may come through on his word of being extremely aggressive especially after it was reported that they had already signed closer Edwin Diaz to a five-year, $102 million deal. Nevertheless, with free agency still in its early goings, the Mets may have plenty more tricks up their sleeve yet to be revealed. Still, free agent negotiations in baseball typically take some time, especially for the most coveted players (Aaron Judge comes to mind), and free agency could prove to be the same old slow burn movie we’ve seen before.
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