Reese Kaplan: After Selecting a Manager You Need to Find Coaches

On Saturday I published an article about the inevitable and predictable outcome of the managerial interview process with Buck Showalter being dubbed the new king of the hill where it comes to day-to-day oversight of the players and the lineups.  Again, I'm not complaining about this well known secret.  However, I want to see that everything associated with it is done properly.

Towards that end, Buck will have a task ahead of him identifying the right support staff as coaches.  He's inheriting Jeremy Hefner as the pitching coach.  While he may have had someone else in mind, the fact is that most of the pitchers did better under Hefner than they did with previous pitching gurus shaping them and theoretically enhancing their productivity.  It would have to be part of the deal for Showalter to take on the Mets job -- that he needs to embrace the one coach he's being given.

After that, it's a wide open playing field for who else the Mets need to bring on board.  For as much as some folks like Carlos Carrasco and other pitcher wannabes struggled during 2021, they were all Cy Young contenders in comparison to the hitters on the Mets.  

You had Pete Alonso driving in 94 runs while contributing 37 dingers, but other than his efforts there wasn't much else to admire.  You had subpar seasons from nearly everyone in the starting lineup and injured shortened seasons by some of the others whose small contributions (Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Davis) were effective but not plentiful enough.

Not only do the Mets need to learn how to make solid contact and to evaluate more effectively how to work the plate, but there are many other aspects of the offensive game that are seriously lacking.  Basic fundamental skills need serious work, including hitting behind the runners, sacrifice bunts, laying off pitches out of the strike zone and understanding that a walk is as good as a hit.  Not every swing needs to adhere to the gospel of launch angle with the goal of depositing it over the wall.  

Perhaps the biggest issue, however, where the Mets have been deficient is base running.  How many times have we seen players not busting it out of the box to try to beat out a play at first?  How seldom did we see stolen bases attempted?  Even rarer, how often did they succeed?  How about aggressively taking extra bases on balls hit into the gap where it would take a miracle throw or relay to nab the runner?  

Obviously the addition of speedster Starling Marte alone helps in this regard, but the rest of the team needs to learn how to use their legs to contribute to a winning effort.  Not everyone is blessed with the most natural speed but everyone is capable of learning how to take leads, how to aggravate pitchers, how to challenge catchers and how to test the arms of fielders making throws.  The overly conservative style of the Mets made it even more difficult to score runs when the bats weren't performing at an optimal level.  

Searching for coaches is a multi-faceted exercise in looking both at experience gained in previous assignments as well as it is having the depth and breadth of knowledge to address specific needs identified as needing significant enhancement.  Not that I'm picking on the man, but choosing a guy like Roger Cedeno to be the first base and steals coach doesn't make sense if his only contribution is ancient history of his own natural abilities.  

Much more important in this role is finding someone who knows how to get more out of his running based not on feet-per-second bursts of speed, but as a result of learning how to read fielders, pitchers, the catcher and even the umpires.  

In addition to these role-specific needs, the Mets also need to think about the future of managing the team.  Everyone wishes Buck Showalter the best possible outcomes for the years he is in charge, but at age 65 the fact is you need to be preparing for the next person who will take the managerial helm.  Often this role goes to the bench coach who is the right hand man to the guy on top and often the interim manager in charge of it all when the head guy gets tossed by enthusiastically expressing his opinion to the boys in blue.  

Towards this end, one of our readers made an excellent suggestion in my first choice for manager, Mike Shildt.  If neither the Mets nor the A's seem ready to hand over the reigns to Shildt after his termination, then he had better start thinking about his future career as well.  Hiring Shildt as a bench coach would give a winning man to Showalter to lean on for advice and it would prepare Shildt for his next managerial stint when Showalter decides it's time to hang up the uniform.  

The danger I see in finding coaches is the ease of familiarity.  We've all been guilty of this hiring expediency from time to time, bringing back someone who has worked for us in the past.  While it's good to know the skill set and work habits of a candidate, sometimes settling for what you've experienced in the past does not necessarily mean the best growth path for the future.  

t will be interesting to see the names who come up for coaching roles for Buck Showalter and identifying how many of them have a close association during his days with the Orioles, Rangers, Diamondbacks or Yankees.  It's entirely possible some of these former coaches are great choices, but the club needs to be sure that they are the best selections.  

For the newcomers and the veterans on the club, the fact is that the 2022 season (if and when it begins) represents a whole new approach to leadership.  From the front office down to the coaching ranks, once you get past Jeremy Hefner, everyone is a new face with new ideas and new capabilities.  The challenge to Showalter is orchestrating this cast of characters into a well tuned machine.