Happy 4th of July! Tomorrow marks the official halfway point in the season. A team on track for 100 wins at this point of the season has a lot to be happy about. What this means is that plenty is going right both between the lines and elsewhere. All the standard complaints that show up in games seems to be minor, even bullpen management, a constant source of anguish for fans. Much of the success comes right from the top step of the dugout. We all know how key Buck Showalter (age 66) has been in bringing a comprehensive, professional face to the team where his endless experience means no one thinks the shots are being called from the owner’s/GM box and magically being beamed to the dugout. Connected to Showalter’s arrival was an overhaul of the coaching staff, who all seem to be important upgrades over those who have left. When things are going right, the lesser coaches are hardly noticed, so it seemed appropriate to learn about the new faces helping Showalter keep the plane flying level at high altitude (with Jeremy Hefner the lone return coach, he’s not in this article).
Standing next to Showalter in the dugout is our old friend, Glenn Sherlock (age 61), who managed both baselines for the Mets for several years. Sherlock and Showalter go way back, so there is a strong intrinsic familiarity for how to keep things running smooth. When Showalter was picked to lead the Diamondbacks, Sherlock joined the coaching staff – and then stayed with the team for 19 years. Although he never made it to the majors, Sherlock served the Diamondbacks as bullpen coach, bench coach, and running the baselines. The Mets are playing super head’s up baseball, and it’s no wonder with Showalter and Sherlock being the top two in the dugout.
After years and years trying to understand the Mets chaotic hitting philosophy, absolutely nothing was worse than watching Chili Davis, with a 19 year big-league career and 10,000 PAs, being excused and replaced by Hugh Quattlebaum to push Sandy Alderson’s antiquated ideas about scoring runs. Enter Eric Chavez (age 44) as the 2022 hitting coach. Chavez earned six Gold Gloves and a Silver Slugger Award during his heyday years in Oakland. Chavez had nine years where he played more than 100 games, with six of those seasons recording an OPS+ > 100 and four seasons around 130. It’s no surprise that Chavez has joined the Mets, as Billy Eppler hired him as a special assistant when he ran the Angels. After Eppler became GM for the Mets, he hired Chavez to lead the hitting approach in Queens. Stating the inherent complexity of hitting and being in touch with all the advanced analytical info, Chavez nonetheless is pushing the team to go to the plate with a clear head not stuffed with numbers, swing at strikes, drive the ball hard, and get on base. His job is to know the numbers and filter out just what each player needs to excel. No way around it, we see this every game with individuals like Brandon Nimmo and Jeff McNeil and the way the team scores runs in so many different ways.
Manning the baselines this season are Wayne Kirby (age 58) and Joey Cora (age 57). Kirby had a relatively undistinguished big-league career as an outfielder and DH, mostly in Cleveland where he finished fourth in the Rookie of the Year competition. Kirby closed his playing days as a Met in 1998. What Kirby does bring to the team is about 10 years coaching first base for the Orioles and Padres. Cora is a well known name around the MLB, with an infamous brother, Alex Cora, most noted for being bench coach for the disgraced and cheating Houston Astros team that won the World Series. Joey Cora began coaching 22 years ago. A friend of Ozzie Guillen, he served as third base coach and bench coach for the White Sox. Given the rather impulsive outbursts of Guillen, Cora took top-step duties when called on. He followed Guillen to Miami as bench coach for the Marlins. Cora moved over to the Pirates organization and ran third base for five seasons before taking his present position running the hot corner for the Mets. His work at third base seems to be meshing perfectly with a smart, aggressive – but not stupid – approach to advancing runners. He’s even managed to get a flailing Pete Alonso across the plate! One unmistakable thing about Cora coaching third base is that he is constantly in recognition where the live ball is. When a runner gets to third, Cora will be pointing directly to the rock. Details. Win. Games.
The last person worth talking about, though not specifically a coach, is Harrison Friedland. Who is that you ask? Despite not having a household name among fans, Friedland has one of the most critical advisory roles to Showalter and Sherlock, being involved in nearly every game as the chief replay analyst for the team. Nearly halfway through his first season, we know the attention to detail a Showalter team has. I will never again say that managers are mostly “talking heads” for the front office. The level of detail extends directly to the video booth, where the analyst gets about 20 seconds to run the replays before having to make a call for Showalter to notify the umps. It is easy to envision the intense pressure of this job with evaluating footage from multiple cameras and rewinding the slo-mo from each, but the success coming from Showalter’s challenges is remarkable. The middle game of the recent Marlins series had a double challenge, which overturned two field calls on the same play involving Nimmo and Starling Marte, and which happened to be the set up that won the game. By the way, the successful challenges embarrassed the field umps along the way. Friedland is a graduate of NC State and has been in scouting and player development as an intern and full timer since 2010. Perhaps most importantly, the Mets pinched Friedland from MLB itself, where he served as a replay operator for four years. His knowledge base about how things are run for replays and what may or may not make a successful challenge are translating directly to wins on the field.
Despite a young general manager in Eppler, the Mets are being looked after by a solid coaching staff rooted with deep baseball experience. In some respects, this direction is a “new” Moneyball, taking a move away from hiring young skippers with virtually no big-league coaching background. The difference in Queens is remarkable. Perhaps the most important aspect is that the right people, with an integrated philosophy all pulling the same direction are managing the team and winning baseball games – lots of them.
Now this is a different article. Nice job Chris.
Buck Showalter has a 3/11.25M contract. He is worth every penny. There is no doubt that he is running the team between the lines. He had assembled a top notch staff. Chavez hitting philosophy and Cora aggressively smart coaching has lead to positive results. The star is Friedland who has a 76.2% success rate with challenges. Cohen spends his money wisely!
Thanks for writing this Chris. I really enjoyed getting to know the coaches. We’ll Done
Anyone who watched games in the 20th Century knew that the manager and his coaches could make a difference. And I’m glad that people who started watching in the 21st Century are getting to experience that firsthand this year with Buck Showalter and his staff.
Too many times in the recent past, we heard that it made no difference who the manager was, and that in-game strategy was overrated. My sincere hope is that anyone who parroted those lines in the last few years realize how foolish they were.
And that goes beyond fans and includes mainstream media and front office executives.