There was a terrific two-part series Tuesday and Wednesday at The Athletic where Tim Britton cleaned out his notebook. It was broken down into two parts, with the first one looking at the hitters and the second one the pitchers. The pieces had quotes from hitting coach Jeremy Barnes and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner that indicated what the various players were working on to move their games forward. We heard some of these things for the pitchers, thanks to the work of Ron Darling. We didn’t have the same insight coming from Keith Hernandez on the hitters. And that’s really something that either the producer or Gary Cohen on his own should have tried to get from Hernandez. We know at this point in his broadcasting career, Hernandez is just mailing it in, saying nothing at all or using the same “bear down” types of cliches.
The most significant point on the hitters was that the Mets had Brett Baty focusing on hitting more balls in the air when he was sent to the minors. It’s an approach that worked well with Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo in the second half of the season. The results weren’t there for Baty but Barnes was pleased with the effort, if not the production. Baty had his lowest GB% of the year in September. Barnes said this about Baty to Britton:
We’ve really paid attention to his load, reducing how much head movement we have going on in our load, trying to keep his eyes as still as possible so we can make our decisions. I feel like he’s put together much better at-bats. I just like what it looks like.
On the pitching side, the most interesting takes came with Trevor Gott. While the Mets seemed to hoard guys who light up the radar gun, Gott is a different breed for a reliever with a four-pitch mix. Gott said he was focusing on throwing all four of his pitches on a more-regular basis this year, believing that in the past he would go too long without throwing a pitch and then wouldn’t have the confidence to throw that pitch when he needed it. After a rough start, Gott had a 2.96 ERA, a 1.274 WHIP and limited hitters to a .630 OPS with a .309 BABIP in his final 27 games.
I just really like his compete (level),” Hefner said. “He’s got a unique delivery. It’s a quick arm, it’s pitchability. He can do different shapes. He’s creative out there in a lot of ways.
All fine and good about the best efforts of the coaches, but of the two quotes, the Gott one is useless. A good baseball fan can tell you close to what Hefner said. We all pay attention and see competitiveness and arm angles, that was useless. I’m pretty grumpy overall with Hefner because I have never heard of him helping a single pitcher improve.
As for Barnes, I’m in the minority in that I don’t blame him as much for the Mets offensive woes. I take a look at the players on the roster and they sucked in the second half, and the first half’s roster were veterans mostly that Barnes couldn’t affect much.
I’ve mentioned before that I have spoken to a former MLB player that lives here, Bart Shirley, and he told me that hitting my coaches can’t help much other than keeping your balance and your hands back. Pitching my coaches though have a much tougher job and much of it is mental. They need to make sure their pitchers are prepared, confident, and have knowledge about different grips and styles that could help a pitcher, among other things like tipping pitches, and Hefner doesn’t have that.
Ignore “my” after hitting, please…..
Please tell me the different shapes that Gott has with his pitches.
Butto has taken a massive step forward and if you compare what Peterson was like in the first part of the year and the second part, there was significant improvement. Now, maybe Hefner didn’t have a ton to do with either pitcher. But I can’t imagine any scenario where he had zero to do with both. And there are others, too.
Specifically, Peterson credited Quintana with helping him improve. I never heard him mention Hefner, ever. As for the shape of a curve or the movement of a slider, I can see that when I’m at a game. It may not be as perfect as a slow motion camera sees or Hefner’s experienced eyes, but yes I see it.
The Mets didn’t want to sign Kyle Schwarber. Bad fielder; bad BA; etc. But batting behind Pete Alonso?! Whoa! For $20m/year! 131 and 122 OPS+ for Philly! So what if he is at the Mendoza line for his BA! And he could have DHed.
If we can’t/don’t get Ohtani to DH, how about J.D. dMartinez? 131 OPS+ last year. The cost to LA? $10m.
Steve, Martinez said that he took less money to go to L.A. claiming the culture enticed him. The Phillies had a DH playing left field, and a DH in Castellanos playing right field. And yet they win anyway. I wonder how many games does a butcher in the corner outfield actually cost you if he hits a ton? Say a player is really horrible, like -20 OAA. That means that for the year, he will miss 20 flyballs an average fielder would catch. That is basically, one flyball every eight games. Now, if it’s at the wrong time, it stands out. But, if it’s a two out double, the team can probably afford it. So, I don’t know that these guys are really not that detrimental to the year as a whole if they played the outfield but aren’t Lagares in his prime out there.
Maybe get Martinez for $15m.?
I can live with an OAA of -19 for a guy like Schwarber with that power + walks. And elite exit velo (better than Pete’s).
Schwarber had a WAR of .7 with all of his home runs. It was hard to believe he was a leadoff hitter. I guess it worked because the Phillies are on their way to their second World Series in two years.
Hefner and Barnes won’t matter because the new manager will want to being in his own coaches. Miss Chili.
Maybe the Mets are finally getting it and are exploring international players. Heard they were looking at a Cuban reliever.
Mike, Schwarber’s oWARs was 3.6 and 2.8 the last two years. Put him at DH and his negative dWARs vanish.
By comparison, Alonso’s oWARS IN 2022 and 2023 were 4.6 and 2.6. Overall, his WARs were 3.5 and 2.4. So worse than a DH Schwarber.
Batting Lindor, Alonso and Schwarber back-to-back-to-back would have worked for me.
For everyone that wants to run Baty out of town already:
https://www.mlb.com/news/alec-bohm-shines-on-defense-in-phillies-nlcs-game-2-win
I remember back in the late ’60s that Brooks Robinson was not a good infielder so he worked his butt off in the offseason and, well, became the gold standard for defense at 3rd base. I hope Baty is doing the same.
same ol ineffective Scherzer last night. Sure glad he’s out of the mix or we’d be committed to pitching him every 5 days, or whever he was fit enough to go, next year. Glad the rangers won in any event. How strange to think the Mets and Rangers had the same vision in March. They weathered the loss of deGrom and have Paul Sewald as their closer, and we fell into a black hole thanks to lousy starting pitching and balsa wood bats.
Now we will see if Scherzer struggles or performs well in the World Series!!