Reese Kaplan -- Report Card Time for Billy Eppler in Year Two

Right now with the season about to start many folks are brimming with optimism while others are already calling the loss of the game's best closer and one of the starting pitchers reason to throw the 2023 season before it ever begins. While there are legitimate reasons to veer towards one of the polar extremes in evaluating the Mets, let's instead look at what year two in a Billy Eppler front office has done and has failed to do.

Right now any other club evaluating the Mets will be empathetic and understanding that the closing duties can be managed by a team of others or handed exclusively to one of the projected setup guys. While you won't get nearly 2 Ks per inning from anyone who's out there, the fact is that the formerly projected 6th, 7th and 8th inning guys -- Drew Smith, Adam Ottavino and David Robertson -- are not exactly chopped liver. No one is sure yet what to make of newcomer Brooks Raley, but he turned in a spectacular 2022 and hopefully it means the team has a great lefty since losing out on Aaron Loup a few years ago.

For the starting rotation the Mets have David Peterson subbing for Jose Quintana, likely for about 100 games while he heals from his surgery. If for some reason he falters or there are injuries to other starting pitchers, Tylor Megill has demonstrated he is certainly a competent backup plan though not necessarily ready to be in the starting five until he improves his consistency. Behind him there are a few other decent arms in AAA, so things are not nearly as bleak as they initially seemed.

On the scale of smack the guy across the forehead and shoot off fireworks to his decision making ability, you have to evaluate both sides of the whole Darin Ruf fiasco. No one is going to get a do-over on the lopsided package it took to get him. It didn't work out. This preseason didn't look any better for the man who seemed to forget not only how to drive a long ball over the fence but also in general how to make contact. Salute Eppler for not letting the stench of this trade overshadow what needed to be done. Hey, it's possible Ruf can right his ship somewhere else just as it's possible he needs a long stint of rehab for his arthritic wrist. At age 36 that could take quite awhile.

Where it starts to get a bit fuzzier is in the realm of underperforming veterans who were simply handed their jobs without really accomplishing much of anything to suggest they deserved them. His red hot September notwithstanding, Eduardo Escobar looked awful both for Venezuela in the WBC and for the Mets. In his absence both rookies Brett Baty and Mark Vientos demonstrated they could adjust to the higher level of pitching and were among the most solid of all Mets in Florida. So when Eppler announced that the duo were Syracuse-bound, people were frustrated, upset and confused when across town they handed starting shortstop duties to a younger player without the requisite (in Eppler's words) "400 games of minor league play."

On the plus side, Eppler and the rest of the Mets personnel made the right decision in sending Francisco Alvarez to Syracuse to work on both his hitting and his defense. He needs to play every day and with the capable backup Tomas Nido and free agent signee Omar Narvaez also ready and needing to play, he wouldn't benefit from a premature assignment in Queens.

When it was clear to everyone except Billy Eppler in the offseason that Darin Ruf was not the answer as part of the DH equation, Mets fans and media watched in annoyance and hostility while many capable hitters left the free agent board to sign with other clubs while the Mets did nothing to improve that role. Now with Ruf gone, it would appear that the right handed half of the DH position by default would go to a guy who has hit an aggregate of just .231 playing for the Padres, Reds and Cardinals. This spring he was worse. Yes, he does still have some home run power, but his defense is lackluster and his baserunning is pretty much a thing of the past. If he rebounds to his career norms, he is the new Darin Ruf -- and that's not exactly going to cause people's champagne corks to burst. More likely it will be their aortas.

Then there's the midseason acquisition of another questionable entity in big Daniel Vogelbach. While his smile and clubhouse demeanor make him a popular guy, his performance was better than average but not by much. Factor in that he can't field, can't run and struggles to hit for much of an average, he's either a home run or a base on balls machine who doesn't have the legs to take advantage of being a baserunner. He costs almost nothing at $1.5 million but folks see the quality of hitters manning DH for other clubs and then go reach for the antacids.

The last few names on the bench are here for known reasons. Luis Guillorme is a defensive magician who has turned from a nothing hitter to one who won't embarrass you when he gets into the game. No one wants to see him playing regularly because that would mean Francisco Lindor or Jeff McNeil are down for a long time. Still, for what he delivers and what he is paid no one is going to fret over Guillorme being on the roster.

The addition of Tim Locastro to the team coming north was not a huge surprise given his major league experience in the outfield, his .289 batting average and his six stolen bases. Given his track record, this 30-year-old may have been playing a bit over his head or feasting on second tier pitching, but with Ruf gone the roster spot opened up and he will likely be riding an Uber back and forth between New York and Syracuse a few times this year.

Kodai Senga looks like he will be a solid addition. For what he is being paid it is entirely possible he may be considered a bargain by year's end. The ghost fork and high strikeout ability are both appealing, though adjusting to the size of the baseball and the English language could prove to take some time to make firm progress.

No one can fault the acquisition of Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander. Between he and Max Scherzer it is entirely possible that you will win a lot of games and see some in-house rivalry for that particular trophy. It is a good thing the Mets reached out and landed Verlander to make up for Jacob deGrom but some would say that's more about Steve Cohen's ample checkbook than any analytical strategy by Eppler.

Then finally there's the whole Carlos Correa situation. The fact that the Giants reached the same conclusion the Mets did suggests that there might indeed be some validity to the fears of his long term health. He wound up back where he played last season but not because it was his first choice but inevitably the last. The tough decision to swallow and take abuse from setting up fans and media with hope only to pull the rug out from under them is actually something that should go into a positive column for Eppler and Cohen. Bringing him on board and then seeing how his long term deal could hamstring the club if the leg health became an issue would have been easier to do but the difficult retreat required courage.

So where does that leave the Billy Eppler front office in terms of what he's done now leading into his sophomore season in charge? In the past I had been on the C+/B- scale of evaluation for the man from Anaheim. Right now with the lack of movement on a DH in the offseason, the overextended look at Darin Ruf, the signing of Tommy Pham, the very weak bench and the refusal to give rookies opportunity to play for the big club, I think that evaluation needs to drop down a hitch to C-/C+. The plus is possible if Senga and Raley turn out to be quality additions. The returns of Ottavino, the extensions for McNeil and Brandon Nimmo, the acquisitions of David Robertson and Omar Narvaez all seem like positives. Still, a betting man right now would no longer put money down that they would surpass or even equal the 101 win season of 2022.