The Metropolitan: Chili out

After another tough loss, the Mets fire their top hitting staff

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May 04, 2021

Good Morning,

🚨 There was some late-breaking news from the Mets last night, as they fired hitting coach Chili Davis and his assistant Tom Slater. Recently hired minor league hitting director Hugh Quattlebaum will replace Davis, and player development head Kevin Howard becomes his assistant.

“This isn’t about recent results,” general manager Zack Scott said in a hastily scheduled press conference to announce the moves around midnight. “This is about the process behind the scenes.”

We’ll discuss the coaching moves much more in a bit, but first, let’s recap last night’s 6-5 loss in St. Louis.

⚾️ IN SHORT: The Mets scored five runs in the first three innings before the bats fell silent over the final six frames, Joey Lucchesi proved once again why he isn’t best suited to be a starter, and the Mets squandered 5+ scoreless relief innings to lose the series opener in St. Louis, 6-5. [Box Score]

🔑 KEY MOMENT: The key moment was really a key decision to start Lucchesi against a lineup that had success against him in the past and was heavily right-handed. The turning point was when Lucchesi seemed to strike out Nolan Arenado on a 1-2 churve in the third inning, but it was called a foul tip, which gave the former Rockies star another chance that he turned into a game-tying three-run home run.

3 TAKEAWAYS

❶ WHY LUCCHESI: Whether Lucchesi escaped the third inning unscathed or not, we know what he is as a pitcher at this point of his career. He has a unique pitch that he grips like a change-up and throws like a curveball. On his best nights, he can be deceptive enough with it to survive without a viable third pitch. However, on most nights, he is left with a sinker that often gets hit hard and a churve that he can’t consistently command for strikes, allowing hitters to zero in on one pitch when ahead in the count. We saw last night why Lucchesi rarely throws his cutter: it’s a fastball that doesn’t move until the opposing hitter smacks it somewhere really far (as Arenado did on his three-run home run).

MATCH-UPS: For some reason, the Mets opted to go with the southpaw, Lucchesi, despite a Cardinals lineup that is entirely right-handed, including two switch-hitters (Tommy Edman and Dylan Carlson) who fare better against lefties. Not to mention, Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt entered last night a combined 14-35 against Lucchesi, and only added to those tallies on Monday.

OPTIONS: Meanwhile, right-hander Jordan Yamamoto is preparing to pitch in the Syracuse opener tonight, when he would have been a suitable option in St. Louis. The Mets could have also turned to Sean Reid-Foley or even Robert Gsellman to get them through 3-4 innings, which is the most they could have realistically expected from Lucchesi, anyway. Ironically, Reid-Foley and Gsellman combined to pitch 4.1 scoreless innings in relief of Lucchesi, anyway.

❷ HEATING UP: Kevin Pillar finished April an abysmal 3-26 at the plate, but the hits are starting to fall now. A day after collecting three hits and sparking an 8th inning rally with a home run in Philadelphia, Pillar added two more hits last night, including a two-run homer that gave the Mets an early 5-2 lead.

❸ LINDOR’S SLUMP : There are slumps and there is whatever Francisco Lindor is going through right now. The $341 million shortstop continues to play everyday and bat second in the lineup, but cannot buy a hit, going 0-4 with two strikeouts and a walk last night, while leaving six runners on base. It seems like he needs a change of routine (anything!) to shake things up. Whether that means the Mets should give him a day off or drop him in the order, we can leave that for the team to decide. But having him do the exact same thing every single day hasn’t been the remedy to break him out of this early season slumber.

NOT YET: While we might like the idea of moving Lindor out of the two-hole for a short stint (even a game!), manager Luis Rojas told reporters he wasn’t considering it yet, as of Monday afternoon: “No, no, not yet […] It’s for the balance of the first few batters, the switch-hitting ability, his ability to run, his ability to do a lot of things — even though he’s not contributing at a rate that we expect him to do. I think guys can benefit because of that.”

🧑‍🏫 SOUND SMART: Lindor has started the season hitting .171 with a homer and 3 RBI, and an OPS+ of 46. In his first season in Cleveland in 2015 (as a rookie), he hit .211 with a homer and 5 RBI in his first month, but later rebounded for an impressive season.

⏭ NEXT UP: The Mets will turn to their ace Jacob deGrom in trying to avenge last night’s loss. Because he is facing deGrom, Cardinals starter Johan Oviedo can expect to have a dominant start, even though he is 0-3, 4.72 for his career, with a 27-14 K-BB ratio over 34.1 innings.

🚨 FIRED: After a dreadful first month of the season at the plate, particularly with runners in scoring position, the Mets decided it was time to make a move, firing coaches Davis and Slater. The timing might seem a bit odd, considering the team has scored 18 runs over the past three games. However, this is about something bigger than what has happened so far this season.

DIFFERENT APPROACH: Andy Martino reports Sandy Alderson “strongly considered” firing Davis in the offseason because of their divergent philosophies, but since he was popular among the players and they had so many other positions to fill, they held off. Essentially, the Mets’ slow start presented the front office with the justification to move in the more progressive direction they originally intended in the offseason.

REASSESS: General manager Zack Scott told reporters last night that Quattlebaum and Howard will remain in their new roles for the rest of the season, and the organization will reassess the situation in the offseason.

🍎 WHO IS HUGH QUATTLEBAUM? Well, he’s not Donnie Stevenson (or is he?). Kidding aside, Quattlebaum joined the team in January as the minor league director of hitting development. Before coming to the Mets, he worked as a hitting coordinator with the Seattle Mariners for three seasons. He has an interesting background as former minor leaguer for the Tigers and Orioles, who won a dunk contest in Finland and tried his hand as a comedy writer in Los Angeles.

⬜ CONTROL THE ZONE: According to a 2019 profile in The Athletic, Quattlebaum “helped implement the organization’s ‘control the zone’ ethos, and the Mariners’ minor-league affiliates increased walks by nearly five percent.” He was praised by Seattle’s director of player development for committing the team to “controlling the strike zone” and “hitting the ball hard in the air.”

🍎 WHO IS KEVIN HOWARD? Another new name who joined the organization this past year, Howard was the director of player development over the past few months. Before joining the Mets, he spent six seasons in Cleveland, working the previous two as their minor league hitting coordinator. The 39-year-old played 12 seasons in the majors for the Reds, Yankees, Phillies, Dodgers, Mariners, Padres, Blue Jays and Cardinals.

🍎 ZACK SCOTT EXPLAINS: The Mets’ acting GM reiterated in the late-night news conference that his decision was not about results over just 23 games, but rather “the process.” He suggested that the new brass had a different hitting philosophy than Davis (note: Scott has known him for years because they worked for the Red Sox at the same time), but chose not to replace him before the season because he wanted to give the coach a chance to show how he might have evolved in recent years. Davis is largely known as an old-school coach, while Scott is more analytics-focused and modern in his thinking.

ZEILE’S THEORY: SNY analyst Todd Zeile surmised that Scott may have pulled the trigger now before the offense has fully taken off, because if and when it did recover, making such a move could be harder to justify at that time. (As Scott acknowledged last night, Davis was popular with the players.)

In other news…

⛑ J.D. INJURED AGAIN: Before the game, the Mets placed J.D. Davis on the 10-day injured list after he sprained his left middle finger. It’s the second IL stint on the short season for Davis, who was replaced at 3B by Jonathan Villar last night.

🍎 CLOSE TO RETURNING: Carlos Carrasco (strained hamstring) will throw six innings today before the team decides whether he will need a minor league start before making his debut with the Mets.

✂️ RELEASED: The Mets released catcher Caleb Joseph last week, according to MLB Trade Rumors. This would explain why they picked up catcher Deivy Grullón off waivers.

🏆 BEST OF THE MONTH: Jacob deGrom was named Pitcher of the Month by MLB for the month of April. While his record suffered due to the Mets’ lack of hitting, the right-hander posted a 0.59 ERA, striking out 56 hitters and walking only four during the first month of the season.

⚾️ PLAY BALL: Minor League Baseball will finally return to action after the entire 2020 season was cancelled due to the pandemic. All four of the Mets’ affiliates kick off their season tonight. As mentioned earlier, Jordan Yamamoto takes the ball in the Syracuse opener.

AFFILIATES: For those confused by the restructuring of the minor leagues: Class A was reduced from three to two levels (High-A and Low-A), so the Columbia Fireflies are no longer a Mets affiliate. The Mets will have four affiliates: Syracuse Mets (AAA), Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Double-A), Brooklyn Cyclones (High-A), and St. Lucie Mets (Low-A).

⚾️ Dodgers RHP Dustin May has a damaged UCL and will need Tommy John surgery, ending his season. Manager Dave Roberts said the club is entertaining the idea of allowing Trevor Bauer to pitch on short rest, something the pitcher publicly campaigned to do in the off-season.

⚾️ Former Braves closer Mark Melancon recorded his tenth save for the Padres last night, and now sports an 0.64 ERA and 0.43 WHIP.

⚾️ Phillies manager Joe Girardi said he does not expect Bryce Harper to hit the injured list, but that he likely will need another couple days off to nurse a left wrist injury (and the pain of striking out against Jeurys Familia with the game on the line Sunday night).

🔗 Get to know Hugh Quattlebaum with this fascinating story in The Athletic from 2019: “Quattlebaum played four seasons in the minors with the Tigers and Orioles and was released after compiling a career .241 average. Like so many before him — and after — Quattlebaum’s chances of reaching the major leagues died a mostly anonymous death.”

🔗 FROM THE ARCHIVES: New assistant hitting coach Kevin Howard finds purpose in his career, by Justin Toscano, Bergen Record: “Kevin, who once wondered what he would do after baseball, has found his purpose – and he didn't even need to leave the game. ‘If you love something and you work hard at it, good things will come to you.’“

📺 WATCH: Acting GM Zack Scott explains his decision to ax his top hitting coaches: