Paul Articulates – The Mets Coaching Staff

The Mets have played 91 games now, which is over half of the season, and they are now approaching the all-star break.   We have written about every player numerous times, from their performance to their usage in games, to their “buy or sell” rating as the trade deadline approaches.

But how about the coaching staff?  Carlos Mendoza is new to the team this year, and he brought with him several coaches and also retained a few from last year’s staff.  This is the time to look at Mendoza and his support staff to see how they are doing and where they can improve.  Of course this always becomes a subjective discussion, because few know what really goes on behind the scenes in the interactions and directions from the front office staff.  

For now, we will discuss the coaches on the merits of their performance, whether that was generated by their decisions or by direction from above.

Carlos Mendoza – Manager.  Carlos has received very strong support from his players.  They see him as a great communicator and someone that listens as well as speaks.  It is very important to have your players’ backing because on-field decisions can be tough and sometimes controversial so you need their trust.  Mendoza scores well there.  He also scores well in lineup construction.  

Early on he went through many iterations of lineups, but his changes that put Lindor in the leadoff spot and Nimmo behind him have really sparked the offense during the Mets’ June/July surge.  Mendoza has not yet impressed though with his mound management.   He has a tendency to pull the starters way too quickly, which has a compounding effect on bullpen stress.  

The results of these decisions are being seen in the fatigued pen which has a MLB-last ERA over 10 in the month of July.  I also believe that this causes self-doubt in the starters because they never get the opportunity to see if they can pitch out of a jam.  Leave ‘em in, Carlos and let them earn their generous salaries.

John Gibbons – Bench Coach.  John was hired alongside Carlos Mendoza to provide the first time manager with some deep experience in managing the ballclub.  Gibbons has probably bestowed a great amount of wisdom on Carlos, but we just don’t know without being there.  Bench coaches are like vice presidents – important but rarely visible to the public eye.

Danny Barnes – Strategy Coach.  I’m not sure I can articulate the Mets’ strategy, although I am sure that it starts with the vision of winning a championship.  Sometimes if you find consistency in tactics it relates to a well-communicated strategy that everyone is bought into.  

Like with the bench coach, we don’t see a lot of Danny Barnes, but the Mets appear to have made some strategic adjustments to the way they structure the lineup and attack opposing pitchers that have led to success.  Let’s give Danny some credit for the upswing.

Jeremy Barnes & Eric Chavez  - Hitting Coaches.  In mid-May I would have bought these two a one-way ticket out of New York as the hitting was abysmal.  There are still some players like McNeil and Alonso that are mysteriously well below expectations, but the rise of Lindor (3rd in MLB extra base hits) and Nimmo’s sudden power stroke suggests that these coaches are helping to make adjustments.  

Mark Vientos is hitting for a higher batting average in NY than he was in Syracuse.  OK, these coaches are earning their salaries.  Now if they can only fix McNeil…

Jeremy Hefner – Pitching Coach.  Hefner has been the longest tenured pitching coach on a large market team that I can think of.  He has lived through the regimes of Luis Rojas, Buck Showalter, and now Carlos Mendoza.  He has presided over greats like deGrom, Scherzer, and Verlander and has guided many arms since the beginning of the 2020 season.  

The pitchers seem to like him, and given his longevity I would say the front offices does, too.  However, something just doesn’t add up for me this year.  There has not been a solid, consistent staff all year.  The starters have not been able to go deep until just recently.  

The bullpen was really good and now are really awful.  What type of influence does Hefner have on Mendoza’s (poor) decisions on removing starting pitchers?  What allows him to green-light Garrett to throw 72 pitches over the span of four consecutive games?  I have more questions than answers here.

Glen Sherlock – Catching & Strategy Coach.  Glen gets an A+ from me.  He was put in place to help a young Fernando Alvarez adjust to the major leagues.  Alvarez has become a top flite catcher in MLB, and although some of that stems from his immense talent, the speed at which he became a star in this game suggests that Sherlock is among the elite on this coaching staff.

Antoan Richardson – First Base Coach.  It is tough to judge first base coaches, because we don’t know what guidance they are giving the base runners.  Since very few have been picked off first this year, we will give Richardson a passing grade.

Mike Sarbaugh –Third Base Coach.  I miss Joey Cora – he was one of the best third base coaches I can remember. He set a very aggressive tone with the Mets base runners which led to more runs scored than they otherwise would have mustered.  Sarbaugh has done an adequate job so far.  He is not quite as aggressive as Cora, but there are very few times a runner is stranded on third and I wished he had been sent, so Sarbaugh gets a passing grade as well.

All of the other coaches are in the bullpen where we can’t see what is going on, so I will not address them here.

So with a 46-45 record just past the midway point of the season, the “competitive” Mets of 2024 are just a half game out of the third wild card spot.  Some of this can be attributed to player performance, and some to coaching. What do you think of this year’s staff?