How Mets GM Billy Eppler just missed out on Padres’ top job

A.J. Preller has made quite an impression in his eight years as Padres general manager. But that job was originally supposed to go to Billy Eppler, who is now the GM of the Mets, the Padres’ wild-card round opponent.

In 2014, Mike Dee, then the Padres’ team president, thought he was all set to hire Eppler, then a Yankees assistant GM, after a breakfast meeting in Boston. Dee even told ownership that Eppler was his guy. But after informing Eppler he was flying back to the West Coast to prepare a formal offer, Dee changed his mind. Dee recalled Friday that he met with Preller at a Los Angeles International Airport hotel to tell him he had finished second, and that meeting changed his decision.

“He convinced me to hire him at that three-hour dinner at an LAX hotel that ended at 2 a.m.,” Dee, now an Audacy radio executive, said before the Mets’ 7-1 Game 1 loss to the Padres. “I called [then-Padres managing partner Ron Fowler] at 5 a.m. and told him I had changed my mind and was going with Preller. A.J. made a compelling case to a guy who likes people to make compelling cases.”

Billy Eppler and A.J Preller
Billy Eppler and A.J Preller
Corey Sipkin; Getty Images

Several other people with the Padres recall that the team indeed came very close to hiring Eppler. But the ultimate call changed everything. Preller eventually sold Padres ownership on going for it when they had been among the lowest-spending teams in baseball before, and their roster now includes four superstars — Juan Soto, Manny Machado, Yu Darvish and Fernando Tatis Jr. — which is how they got to the postseason (minus Tatis, who is suspended for PEDs).

Eppler has done well for himself, too, leading the Angels for five years before landing the Mets job. He had a winter like few others, when the Mets signed free agents Max Scherzer, Starling Marte, Mark Canha, Eduardo Escobar and Adam Ottavino, going five-for-five, which is a free agency rarity. And that’s how he got the Mets to the postseason, too.

Neither man wanted to speak on what might have been, though. Preller said, “It’s in the past. On to Cincinnati,” (quoting Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s retort when he doesn’t want to talk about something), and Eppler didn’t return messages regarding the hiring that never was.

source: nypost.com