Paul Articulates – Do we Hef the right guy?

There have been so many changes in the Mets organization since Steve Cohen purchased the team back in October, 2020.  We have seen front office changes, managerial changes, player development and scouting changes, and certainly changes in the player personnel throughout the system.

One thing that has not changed is the pitching coach, Jeremy Hefner.  Jeremy has been with the Mets since the 2019 season, and has been the pitching coach since that offseason – December 8, 2019 to be exact.  He has spanned the Mickey Calloway, Luis Rojas, Buck Showalter, and now Carlos Mendoza regimes.  This is highly unusual for any coach, as new managers usually like to hire “their own guys”.

Hefner has been the pitching coach for the power foursome of  Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Zack Wheeler, and Steven Matz; he has seen Marcus Stroman, Carlos Carrasco, Taijuan Walker, Max Scherzer, and Justin Verlander come and go; and has recently brushed up on his Japanese for the start of the Kodai Senga era.

With all that outstanding pitching talent around, and nothing but a one-and-done playoff series to show, one must wonder whether the coaching has done the right thing to optimize the output of its staff.  There have been countless injuries to blame, but pitcher health is also a responsibility of the coaching staff as they dictate everything from innings to pitch count to pre-and post-game routings.  The staff manages inputs from dieticians and physical therapists to ensure bodies are properly conditioned and fed.  So once again, the question pops up in my head, “Do we have the right guy in charge”?

Sometimes a player or a manager hangs around longer than they should because they have a loyal friend in the leadership chain that has their back.  In the case of the Mets with the upheaval from the top down in their chain, there is no one left that was there in 2019 who could have saved Hefner.  So there must be a convincing argument that he is the right guy.

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Hefner’s first as head pitching coach for the Mets, their staff ended the season with a 26-34 record and a 4.98 ERA which was good for 12th best in the 15 team National League.  In 2021, the staff had a 77-85 record with an improved 3.90 ERA for the full season which was 5th in the NL.  Their banner 2022 season where they recorded 101 wins also saw an improvement in the team ERA to 3.57, third in the NL.  However, their pitching did not impress in the pennant race and playoffs.  Last year included a significant regression to a 4.30 ERA and another bottom half finish in the NL for Mets pitching which has traditionally been the strongest part of their team.

It is hard to pin pitcher injuries on the MLB team staff in this era of mid-90’s arms; because players are developed from early in their careers to throw the ball harder and with more spin than most arms can endure.  At the same time it seems like the constant parade of high profile pitchers heading to the Mets’ injured list is a bit more rapid than the average MLB team.  From the list above, only Wheeler and Stroman could be considered as workhorse pitchers that avoided major injuries, and even with Wheeler the Mets’ decision to let him go to free agency before the 2020 season was partially influenced by health concerns.

Another aspect of pitcher development that I have questioned over the last few years was why the Mets could never seem to get new, promising talent over the top.  Rafael Montero, Seth Lugo, Tylor Megill, David Peterson, Jose Butto, Drew Smith, Paul Sewald, Miguel Castro, and many others came up through the system with great billing.  None of them became a prized pitcher within the organization, and most wore out their welcome and went on to other teams where some (e.g. Sewald) flourished.

Recently after Steve Cohen invested a ton of money in player development technology, and after some sideways comments from Justin Verlander, Mets fans became aware that we have been playing catch-up to other organizations which had amassed much more capable tools for understanding and improving pitching mechanics.  If the Mets staff had been denied the advantages of improved technology and techniques that other teams had, it may be reasonable to scapegoat the system and give Hefner a pass.

But in the ruthless business of baseball, where managers and their staff are quickly dismissed for failure to achieve yearly won-lost goals, it is very peculiar that the pitching coach without many success cases survives three management changes without being held accountable for his part in the lack of progress.

There is a promising group of pitchers moving their way up through the minor league system, and a brand new state-of-the-art pitching lab in St. Lucie to guide their improvement.  Their names should grace the back of major league uniforms within the next couple of years.  If we have indeed kept the “right guy” to coach them, then we should see a return to dominance for New York Mets pitching.