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The New York Mets’ long and winding search for a new head of baseball operations finally ended Monday.
Billy Eppler, the former Los Angeles Angels general manager who previously spent more than a decade with the New York Yankees, agreed to become the Mets’ GM, the team’s fourth in a span of 12 months, sources confirmed to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
The Mets fired acting GM Zack Scott on Nov. 1, two months after he was arrested on charges of drunken driving. Scott was promoted to the role in January when Jared Porter was fired after fewer than 40 days on the job following revelations he sent sexually explicit text messages to a female reporter while working for the Chicago Cubs in 2016.
Porter was the replacement for Brodie Van Wagenen, the agent-turned-GM who was let go at the conclusion of his second season with the organization in November 2020, shortly after Steve Cohen was approved as the team’s new owner.
Eppler, 46, spent the past two months as a co-leader of a new baseball representation business for the William Morris Endeavor agency. His hiring ends a six-week search that began with ambitious plans to hire a decorated president of baseball operations — Theo Epstein, Billy Beane and David Stearns were among those linked to the job — before the Mets pivoted toward a GM.
Eppler will now report to president Sandy Alderson, who said he will remain on the baseball side in the interim but could hand those duties off to a president of baseball operations who could be hired next offseason.
Speaking from the general managers meetings last week, Alderson said several candidates to fill the job were unable to get permission from their current teams to interview, while others had declined because they were too comfortable personally or professionally at their current jobs. Alderson also said he believed the biggest impediment in the club’s dragging search was the spotlight created by the New York market.
That, however, shouldn’t be a problem for Eppler, who has long…
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Source : espn
