Editor’s Note – This piece was written on Friday morning and does not include stats for the past two games.
It’s no secret that the Mets offense underperformed in 2021. The poor start that the club got off to cost Chili Davis and Tom Slater their jobs early in the year. But it’s not like the offense turned a corner once Hugh Quattlebaum entered the picture. In fact, many people wish that Davis never left, as his philosophy of having hitters utilize the entire field resonates with a lot of people who wish for something besides home runs.
Disregarding if Davis’ philosophy actually manifested with the hitters, let’s take a look at how the club did under Davis and under Quattlebaum. Now, the sample with Davis wasn’t very large, as he was let go after the club’s 6-5 loss to the Cardinals on May 3, the 24th game of the season. The Mets had a .244/.327/.372 line in 880 PA this year with Davis as their hitting coach. Once Quattlebaum took over, the Mets put up a line of .238/.313/.393 in 4,870 PA. Not really much difference there.
Let’s look at the seven individual hitters who had at least 60 PA with both Davis and Quattlebaum as their hitting coach.
Francisco Lindor
CD – 108 PA, .157/.283/.202
HQ – 403 PA, .251/.336/.467
Pete Alonso
CD – 101 PA, .278/.347/.522
HQ – 524 PA, .255/.338/.515
Michael Conforto
CD – 97 PA, .241/.351/.386
HQ – 374 PA, .225/..340/.373
CD – 90 PA, .235/.267/.353
HQ – 396 PA, .249/.316/.370
Brandon Nimmo
CD – 85 PA, .338/.440/.507
HQ – 288 PA, .282/.397/.402
Jeff McNeil
CD – 82 PA, .239/.341/.366
HQ – 240 PA, .254/.315/.360
James McCann
CD – 71 PA, .215/.282/.262
HQ – 258 PA, .247/.310/.387
Of course, there were many other things going on that affected these numbers besides who was the team’s hitting coach. Should Davis be knocked for Lindor’s .173 BABIP? Should Quattlebaum be held accountable for Nimmo’s finger injury that sapped his power? And what about the time they were employed? Hitting conditions are usually more favorable in July than they are in April.
Let’s look at the team’s performance by month and compare it to league average. We’ll throw out May, since it’s not like Quattlebaum could wave a magic wand and make the hitters immediately change what they were doing. Think back to 2015 and Daniel Murphy. He was trying to change his style of hitting and it took until August for the changes to show up. And this was one that he was in complete agreement with. Just imagine if you were a hitter who was happy with what Davis was preaching and then the new guy comes in and wants you to make changes that you’re not 100% on board with – it’s easy to imagine results not being there right away.
April
NL –- .232/.314/.389
Mets – .236/.322/.361
June
NL — .237/.315/.400
Mets – 222/.297/.379
July
NL — .255/.332/.426
Mets – .265/.342/.439
August
NL — .243/.315/.412
Mets – .231/.303/.366
September
NL — .248/.321/.422
Mets – .249/.323/.423
The Mets’ two best months of hitting occurred in July and September. Here in September, they’ve gotten strong months from Javier Baez (1.019 OPS), Lindor (.933) and Alonso (.927) and sub-par months from McNeil (.673), Jonathan Villar (.630) and McCann (.527) with three games still to come.
But that’s the way it should be – a few guys doing really well, a few doing more or less average and a few stinking up the joint. Is the problem the hitting coach or the manager playing McNeil and Villar every day?
The only players hitting early when Davis was the hitting coach were J.D. Davis and Nimmo. And then both of them got hurt. Davis was buried when he came back and Nimmo, as mentioned earlier, had his extra-base hit numbers a shell of his former self when he came back after a two-month absence.
Many years ago, Keith Hernandez said that a major league hitting coach wasn’t nearly as important to the hitters as a major league pitching coach is to pitchers. That line struck me when Hernandez first said it and this year certainly seems to be an endorsement of that line of thinking. Maybe Davis deserved a longer shot than he got. But in a year filled with disappointing seasons, injuries and bad luck, the Mets are doing their best hitting at the end of the year.
It seems odd to blame the current hitting coach for that.
It’s amazing how much the batting coach improves when the quality of hitter improves. The stats and Keith point to the hitters being the issue. The Mets need to improve the offensive talent level, regardless of what transpired with the coaching staff and/or philosophical approach.
I thought Chili deserves credit for the “whole-field” hitting of Conforto, McNeil, and Dom last season… even though he was absent (Covid) but his policies were being employed by those hitters. It was that absence that might have cost Chili most, another victim of Covid.
Mets offense was truly pathetic for most of this season. Not sure what could have been done about it, but I really did not see too many overt efforts being made to score runs… I think Rojas just assumed that eventually they would start hitting… they didn’t, and his lack of ingenuity cost them a golden opportunity to steal the division. It’s not all his fault… injuries, for example…
But the manager is paid to win games, and I can’t think of even three games that Rojas won with game-time managing… just not ready for prime time. We need a manager who affects the outcome of the game, for our side!
Davis’ record does include offense from last year. Quattlebum should be trucked out to parking lot and sent to pasture with Alderson.
Let Conforto walk,sign Russel or Castellanos or Schawber, trade Diaz for Gary Sanchez.
No thanks on Sanchez. We don’t need a catcher who can’t hit, field or throw out runners when we have a catcher signed for 3 more years and our best prospect is a catcher. If we move Diaz we should do a lot better than Sanchez.
I think that had to be a joke, about trading for Sanchez. I found it hard to believe that Boone started Sanchez in today’s must-win game. I mean, other than the very occasional home run, Sanchez becomes a major liability whenever there is a runner on base. I believe this will be the year that the Yankees dump him… and I will drop out of baseball if he ends up in Queens…
McCann is pretty weak at the dish, but he’s decent enough behind it… I can live with him for 100 games a year until Alvarez arrives.
On J D Davis: Today he was asked on the postgame presser about his chances of being on the Mets next year. His answer was 50/50. When asked to elaborate, he said that there’s many moving parts here and we know there will be alot of changes. It bothers me to have a player feel that way, but they are pros.
On the hitting coach: I spoke to a former major league player a few years back when Hudgens was being scorned by the fan base and asked him if the hitting coach makes a big difference. He broke into a batting stance right there and said that hitting coaches can only help with balance or opening up too early, but otherwise they can’t help you recognize a pitch any better or help your pitch selection.
On the Mets offensive production: I tried to find the Mets production with RISP as compared to the league, and couldn’t. I found the entire league on Baseball Reference – and for two outs – but not by team. I don’t think it’s best to just view the stat lines because we all know the games were lost when the ducks were in the pond.
I think it was Doug Williams, but someone on the Shea Anything podcast said that he’d be using “Hugh Quattlebaum” as his hotel check-in alias from now on. hahahahaha
What was the deal with that fake hitting coach that Pete Alonso made up?? Another thing to add to one of the stranger Mets seasons (thumbs down, squirrel/raccoon, drunk GM passed out in car, etc)