Alex Rubinson - Who is Justin Willard?

 

Shortly after the conclusion of a disappointing 2025 season, David Stearns and Carlos Mendoza took massive measures and completely overhauled the coaching staff. The team parted ways with longtime assistant coaches while trying to bring in fresh voices to revitalize the organization. The team brought in Kai Correa as its bench coach and Troy Snitker (former Atlanta Braves Manager Brian Snitker’s son) as the hitting coach. Those hires will be crucial if the Mets want to have a year that resembles more of 2024 than 2025, but the hire that could prove to be the difference is 35-year-old Justin Willard, the man in charge of leading the pitching staff. 

The Mets finished the 2025 season below average compared to the rest of the league in ERA+ (100) and were in the bottom 10 in WHIP (1.323). The starting staff recorded fewer than five innings per start. Only the Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox and injury-riddled Los Angeles Dodgers were worse. 

Willard comes from being the Director of Pitching for the Boston Red Sox. Before Beantown, Willard served as the pitching coach and coordinator with the Minnesota Twins from 2017-2023. His time as the team’s pitching coach coincided with the rise of Jose Berrios. Berrios enjoyed consecutive All-Star seasons under Willard’s guidance. Despite questions surrounding the Red Sox staff heading into the 2025 season, Boston’s pitchers were a top five unit in ERA for the year.

Although he wasn't the pitching coach in Boston, he oversaw the pitching operation and played an instrumental role in the development of the Red Sox staff. Willard was there for the transformation of Brayan Bello into one of the more promising young hurlers in MLB. In 2023, Bello’s first full season, his FIP was over 4.50. In the two seasons since Willard arrived, he lowered that figure by 35 points. Although his 2024 numbers might not be inspiring, Bello took a massive leap in 2025 with 3.35 ERA. He cut his WHIP by over a full walk and hit since Willard arrived. 

Bello is currently the best example of pitchers who have taken that leap to the next level, but the Red Sox have quietly built a solid young pitching nucleus. Top prospects Connelly Early and Payton Tolle both made their debuts late last season. Early was even tasked with taking the rubber for the winner-take-all game against the New York Yankees last October. Even looking at the big league roster, Garrett Crochet always had the undeniable talent, but there were concerns about the former relief pitcher throwing a full season of work ( he had never thrown over 150 innings in a season). A lot of the credit goes to Pitching Coach Andrew Baily, but Willard deserves some credit for helping Crochet turn in a Cy Young-worthy season when the southpaw tossed north of 200 innings. Lucas Giolito also enjoyed a resurgence under Bailey and Willard. The former top prospect pitched to a fantastic 120 ERA+. 

It’s also noteworthy to point out the trend the Red Sox set when Willard and Bailey first came aboard. Right off the bat, Boston was known as a team that had dramatically stopped throwing fastballs. All of a sudden, the notion that one had to establish good old-fashioned number one was thrown out the window. Now, I’m not trying to prepare Mets fans to see fewer fastballs come the spring. Newly-acquired Freddy Peralta is known for his four-seamer, as he threw the pitch over half the time last season. I highly doubt Williard agreed to acquire the former Brewer with the intention to completely overhaul his repertoire. What his time and experiment with Bailey and the Sox show is that Willard is going to try new techniques. He is going to invent new trends to stay ahead of the curve. 

Willard has been very outspoken with getting pitchers in the strike zone. It might be cliché in MLB, but Willard believes that’s how pitchers can maintain consistency at the highest level. As previously mentioned, New York’s rotation was one of the worst at working deep into ballgames. Meanwhile, Boston ranked in the top 10 in innings pitched per start. With the intent to throw more pitches in the strike zone, that can help the starters get quicker outs, keep their pitch counts low and work deeper into the ballgames while taking a lot of the pressure off of the arms and shoulders of their fellow relievers. 

One of the biggest mysteries in 2025 was the decline of Sean Manaea. It’s very possible it can be attributed to his injury, but that most likely doesn't explain the entire picture. In 2025, Manaea threw his four-seamer 60% of the time, but that percentage was nearly cut in half during his standout 2024 season. It’s unclear why this change was made (maybe injury-related), but it will be interesting to see if Willard comes in and changes Manaea repertoire and sequencing to reflect more of his 2024 numbers. Even someone like Kodai Senga might be on a similar track. He only throws his fastball about a third of the time, but it’s still the most of any pitch for a guy who is capable of tossing a handful of other options. Opponents slugged almost .550 off of his fastball compared to barely over .300 on his sinker. Some of the batting average statistics look similar, but it does show opponents were not getting nearly as many extra-base hits against it. When it’s all said and done, there might only be minimal changes, but Willard will tinker to maximize the different hurlers on his staff. 

If the Mets want to be playing in October, they are going to need to get more out of their pitching staff. They made the big move to acquire Peralta along with Tobias Myers in the offseason. They are hoping Chsitrian Scott returns at some point in 2026 and will be relying on Manaea and Senga to revitalize their careers. A lot of pressure sits on these men’s shoulders, and Williard, a 35-year-old former collegiate pitcher at Division II Concord and Division I Radford, will be tasked with getting the entire group to be at the top of their games when they toe the rubber.