Mets GM Billy Eppler on goals for Brett Baty at Triple-A, why Ronny Mauricio hasn’t been called up

After overseeing a period of great change at the trade deadline for the Mets’ organization, general manager Billy Eppler explained what happened leading up to the deadline, Brett Baty’s demotion to Triple-A and why one prospect has yet to earn his big league debut.

Speaking to Joel Sherman on "The Show” podcast, Eppler said that the best way forward for the team’s former top prospect is at Triple-A Syracuse, but “we believe in Brett’s ability, and that view has not changed.”

In 86 games with the Mets this year, the young third baseman struggled with his hitting (batting .216 with a .620 OPS) and his fielding (committing nine errors).

Eppler said Syracuse is where Baty can “feel a little bit more freedom to try things, to try things in the batter’s box, to try things defensively and maybe hunt pitches or get in certain situations where maybe he’s looking to ambush a pitch and get out in front and get it airborne.”

“And on the defensive side give him the freedom to play loose play free. Throw from multiple arm slots and just take some chances,” he continued. “Brett cares a lot and I think sometimes that desire and that drive, I mean he’s a son of a coach. And so he’s got a very big team mindset and I think with some maybe more seasoned pitchers on the mound you get yourself into a situation where you’re trying to not make a mistake instead of trying to just like play with your hair on fire, play loose and take some chances and let’s see what happens.”

The GM called the demotion “like a timeout that was important at this time” and would allow the 23-year-old to set some objectives at the plate and in the field that are “measurable and achievable” and “hopefully he’s not down long, but a lot of that’s up to him.”

“He’s got a really good head on his shoulders,” Eppler said, adding he had spoken to Batty before the interview and was going to speak to him again after because he wanted to “make sure we stay invested there because Brett’s a big part of our future.”

On the flip side, one of the last few top prospects for the organization who are close to major league ready but have not been called up is Ronny Mauricio, who has posted a .287 batting average and .819 OPS in 98 games at Syracuse this season.

Eppler said the club will take things slow, but left the door open for the 22-year-old to make his MLB debut this season.

“There’s just still some things we want to see, both on the offensive side and defensive side with him,” the GM said.

“I don’t want to put somebody in a position with all the lights, all of the focus and everything on them unless they’re banging the door down,” Eppler added. “...He’s a young, talented thoroughbred. But we also want to just be mindful of the stage here and the gravity and the responsibility that kinda comes with that.

“And remain open-minded to adding him in the future, but still just need to see more of the objectives or boxes checked before we go down that path.”

Trade deadline deals

When asked about when he first had an inclination that the season might not go the way the Mets hoped for in spring training, Eppler began his answer with a recap of the first third of the season but said there was no one point.

“To pinpoint your question and say this was that moment in time an epiphany,” Eppler told Sherman, “it was a snowballing effect, a compounding effect of circumstances.”

The general manager said that after not playing well in May it “compounded into June being a really poor month.”

“Some of the components of the club – talking about position players, starting pitchers and the bullpen - at any given moment some of those components weren’t performing at an accustomed level and so that just left us with a couple of different areas where we had some underperformance or had some holes.”

Eppler said it is challenging to execute trades before the All-Star break, but after the series against Chicago and Boston in mid-June, the organization began to see if there would be interest from other teams and “just looking opportunistically” of what moves could look like.

“It wasn’t an approach of ‘we need to move this player or this player or this player,’ it was ‘let’s see if there’s a way to enhance the longer-term goal of the organization’ and we set a bar pretty high,” the GM said. “We were not going to liquidate or sell all pieces and look to re-position or save money, some teams do. We were gonna set a high bar, have high standards for what came back in these deals and then evaluate it.”

Eppler looked at the players the Mets got back in these deals – in part thanks to owner Steve Cohen agreeing to send millions to Texas and Houston to complete the deals for Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander – as all part of a “probabilistic” calculation to improve the odds of finding the next solid big-league contributor.

“Some of the prospects that we acquired will pan out and some will not,” he said, “but it’s the opportunities and like number of bites at an apple that you’re looking for in that calculus."

On the whole, Eppler said the talent that the organization got back at the deadline "might have taken two or three draft cycles to accomplish."

“Being able to grab prospects that are at High-A, Double-A, even Triple-A level, shrinks a little bit of that development ladder down. Really enhances and kinda helps expedites the blueprint of where we want to go,” he said. “And we don’t want to endure five, six seven years – we play against some clubs that have gone through long periods of darkness in order to round out a player pool, a young player pool, and a strong farm system – and that’s not what we want to endure.

“We want to execute on that quicker. We want to be able to be aggressive and re-purpose Steve’s investment in the team in order to do that.”