NEW YORK — Sometime around the midpoint of the baseball owners’ nearly two billion dollar spending spree at the winter meetings in San Diego this week, Billy Eppler got off the phone in the Mets war room and announced to his troops that the earth had just shifted.
Leading up to the meetings, the Mets general manager had devised numerous game plans with his owner Steve Cohen on how to fulfill all of their needs — center field, starting pitching, bullpen — in as prudent a way as possible. They had all but conceded losing Brandon Nimmo to a bidding war that seemed headed for more years than they felt comfortable.
But then Hal Steinbrenner blinked on a ninth year for Aaron Judge and coughed up $146.5 million more than his superstar slugger had originally turned down back in March, and Phillies general partner John Middleton, who had earlier signed Taijuan Walker, the Mets’ No. 4 starter last year, for a whopping $72 million over four years, fulfilled his quest for shortstop Trea Turner with an eye-popping 11-year, $300 million deal. Mind you, Cohen had already seen the Texas Rangers stun the baseball fraternity by luring away Jacob deGrom for a five-year deal worth $185 million — when he and Eppler had privately agreed that three years would be their max for the oft-injured two-time Cy Young winner — and now he was steaming.
