Former New York Mets star pitcher Max Scherzer was traded to the Texas Rangers on Saturday, and the details are now leaking out about what happened behind closed doors leading up to the move.

After his last start on Friday night, where the ace went seven innings and allowed only one run against his former Nationals teammates, Scherzer told reporters he wanted to speak to the Mets top brass regarding the direction of the team.

“I talked to Billy,” Scherzer told The Athletic per Ken Rosenthal. “I was like, ‘OK, are we reloading for 2024?’ He goes, ‘No, we’re not. Basically our vision now is for 2025-2026, ‘25 at the earliest, more like ‘26. We’re going to be making trades around that.’

This was a stunning update for Eppler to make, after trying to convince fans over the weekend that the team was not liquidating all of its assets and rebuilding. 2026 is a long way off for a struggling franchise and impatient fanbase, and the players were not pleased with the retreat.

“I was like, ‘So the team is not going to be pursuing free agents this offseason or assemble a team that can compete for a World Series next year?’ He said, ‘No, we’re not going to be signing the upper-echelon guys. We’re going to be on the smaller deals within free agency. ‘24 is now looking to be more of a kind of transitory year,’” Eppler reportedly said.

Scherzer was clearly stunned to hear that Eppler would not be retooling the roster to fight for a World Series in 2024 after falling short of expectations this year. Following his meeting with Eppler and the rest of the front office, he was dealt to the Texas Rangers and waived his no-trade clause, seemingly realizing that there was no reason to stick around.

“That’s a completely different vision from what everybody had in the clubhouse. All the players had a vision of, we reload for 2024. That was no longer the case,” Scherzer finished.

Scherzer and many of the Mets stars felt disenfranchised by this news, despite the dreadful start to the season. Most of the guys in the clubhouse still wanted to compete for a playoff spot, as they only sat 6 games back from the NL wildcard. The upper management had other ideas, and continued with their fire sale of the team to liquidate top assets in return for prospects.