Here comes the stat nerd: I went to see where the Mets' pitching staffs have ranked league-wide since Hefner's tenure began in 2020, and it was mostly 'meh'. ERA - 4.03 (11th); FIP - 4.02 (11th); WHIP - 1.28 (16th); total fWAR - 85.7 (11th). Not bad, but pretty solidly that of a perpetual wild card contender.
And the deeper I dug, the more sense the firing makes when thinking about Stearns's vocal commitment to run prevention — their team walk numbers have generally been pretty bad recently. Save for two solid seasons fresh off the COVID year, Mets staffs have ranked in the mid-20s in walks allowed, BB/9, and WHIP. They've issued the eighth-most walks in baseball since 2020, and they sit firmly middle of the road in WHIP with a collective 1.28 mark over those five seasons.
If the focus this winter is indeed run prevention, then seeking to stabilize the lingering free pass situation makes sense.
Additionally, Mets starters from 2020-2025 have thrown 305 quality starts (12th), but they've thrown just five complete games and have only three shutouts in those five years. Homers haven't been an issue for a while; Mets arms have allowed just 944 (fourth-fewest) since 2020. Instead, the problem lies in base hits allowed with runners on base: Mets pitchers have allowed the 27th-most hits in MLB with the bases empty, but the 19th-most with runners on. When more than half your team's walks (54.5%) are issued with the bases empty, and you give up more hits with runners on base than not, safe to say you're not doing yourself any favors.
TL;DR - I'm not too shocked by Hefner's dismissal. After several years of mostly the same returns, it was time for a shake-up across the board.
I can see this kind of housecleaning if the Mets had finished under .500 — but let’s not kid ourselves, this is scapegoating the coaching staff for management’s failures.
The front office built a roster with gaping flaws, didn’t address them when the cracks first showed, and then acted stunned when the avalanche hit. You can shuffle hitting coaches and third-base coaches all day, but that doesn’t erase the lack of pitching depth, the bullpen meltdowns, or the poor roster construction that left the team exposed when the injuries piled up.
Yes, the team underachieved, and yes, a 4.95 ERA in the last three months is ugly. But were Hefner and Chávez the ones who passed on real reinforcements at the deadline? Were they the ones who bet on fragile arms and streaky bats? Coaches make tweaks — they don’t set budgets, dictate strategy at the top, or decide to ride “math” until the wheels fall off.
This isn’t accountability; it’s convenient bloodletting. Until the Mets actually address the structural failures of the organization — starting with the people putting the roster together — changing out coaches is just window dressing.
Hefner will have a new job before he goes to bed tonite. He will then impart the Mets pitching lab secrets to whichever team he goes to next. The hitting coaches needed to go. Chavez was never a great hitter when he played. If JD is done playing or they are done punishing Beltran they would be my choices. Why Mendoza gets a free pass is bewildering. I hope Cohen knows where the real blame lies and that’s Stearns. He thought he was smarter than every other GM or president that ever put together a team in the history of baseball and thought he could keep using reclamation projects and other crappy pitchers that he got away with last year and it would work again. It failed spectacularly. He is the main person to blame and Cohen doesn’t need to call him out publicly but I hope he laid into him.
Go look up Eric Chavez statistical performance in his peak years from his age 22 season in 2000 through his age 28 season in 2006, before he got hurt. Pretty pretty good. None of that means he was a bad or good hitting coach. But he like Hefner had been here for a long time. Incidentally Hefner was a pretty subpar pitcher for 2 seasons.
Mendoza doesn't get a free pass, but he was hired by Stearns, whereas the two inherited Chavez, Barnes, Hefner, Danny Barnes.
Stearns, likely with consultation with Cohen and Eppler on his way out elected to keep staff rather than send them packing. They had 2 extra years to prove their value. They failed.
you can churn coaches all you want, but if the front office hands you a roster made of bubblegum and duct tape, you’re not winning.
The Mets’ 2025 roster really was half a Triple-A lineup at times. You had Lindor, Alonso, Soto holding it down, but around them? Rookies pressed into service, guys who should’ve been depth pieces playing everyday roles, constant shuttle between Syracuse and Queens. That’s not on Mendoza, that’s on the GM.
And the rotation? Brutal. No true ace, no anchor. Just a rotating cast of “maybe he’ll give us five innings if his arm doesn’t fall off tonight.” You can’t compete in the NL East when the Braves and Phillies are running out frontline starters and you’ve got a patchwork staff.
This coaching purge to me, is scapegoating. Fire the hitting coach, the pitching coach, shuffle the deck chairs, but the real issue is roster construction. Mendoza made a lot of the right tactical moves, but you can’t play chess if half your pieces are pawns glued together.
If the GM doesn’t deliver a legit ace and two solid bats this offseason, it doesn’t matter if they bring in the ghost of Casey Stengel to coach.
Managers, coaches, owners, and so on are not fungible. They matter.
A bad team or a team with injuries or whatever won't become good with a good manager. But managers and all the rest do affect the win/loss record. It isn't all on the players.
I don't mind some housecleaning, but ultimately, the buck stops where? Stearns and Mendoza, I would say (other than the owner), and they are both still here. Of the bunch, Hefner seems like the guy it will be hardest to replace, even if no one is irreplaceable.
At the end of the day it is the players putting on the uniforms that are to blame. No coach or manager carries a satchel of pixie dust that they can sprinkle on to full grown adult humans. The coaches who were let go today had been with the organization from as early as 2020, Hefner, 2022 for Chavez & Barnes.
The construction of this roster has the fingerprints of the following GMs on it:
Sandy Alderson
Brodie Van Wagenen
Zack Scott
Billy Eppler
David Stearns
Stearns took ownership of the roster because he can't pass the buck. But he did not select everyone and has had to allow contracts he inherited to fade away.
As terrible as it seems, a realist knows that the Mets were making a bridge attempt in 2024, it went off way better than anyone could have fantasized. That result along with a giant checkbook allowed the Mets to seduce Juan Soto to buy into the rest of his career in Flushing.
The attempt to try to repeat that in 2025 was ill fated, but it was done in the design to get system to where it needed to be, which is now a consensus top 5. The pitching this organization is developing will tell the tale of the next 3-5 years. And the combine fruits of their player development system will allow them to make the moves to add veteran pitchers that are desperately needed.
Senga, Manaea, Peterson could have pitched competently this season and the Mets should have easily won 88-90 games. They did not. Especially post deadline.
My question is what part of the Mets pitching injury problems lie with the pitching coaches? The pitching lab? I mean who ever heard of a lat strain until a few years ago? Who heard of all the muscle pulls they go through now? Maybe some of these guys have trained wrong, over-trained or what? Hefner could not get Peterson out his funk late in the year, (and I am of fan of his stuff that he is an above average pitcher). Did he get Helsely out? The kids came up from the minors, and McLean in particular had a better idea about how to pitch than most of the vets
Here comes the stat nerd: I went to see where the Mets' pitching staffs have ranked league-wide since Hefner's tenure began in 2020, and it was mostly 'meh'. ERA - 4.03 (11th); FIP - 4.02 (11th); WHIP - 1.28 (16th); total fWAR - 85.7 (11th). Not bad, but pretty solidly that of a perpetual wild card contender.
And the deeper I dug, the more sense the firing makes when thinking about Stearns's vocal commitment to run prevention — their team walk numbers have generally been pretty bad recently. Save for two solid seasons fresh off the COVID year, Mets staffs have ranked in the mid-20s in walks allowed, BB/9, and WHIP. They've issued the eighth-most walks in baseball since 2020, and they sit firmly middle of the road in WHIP with a collective 1.28 mark over those five seasons.
If the focus this winter is indeed run prevention, then seeking to stabilize the lingering free pass situation makes sense.
Additionally, Mets starters from 2020-2025 have thrown 305 quality starts (12th), but they've thrown just five complete games and have only three shutouts in those five years. Homers haven't been an issue for a while; Mets arms have allowed just 944 (fourth-fewest) since 2020. Instead, the problem lies in base hits allowed with runners on base: Mets pitchers have allowed the 27th-most hits in MLB with the bases empty, but the 19th-most with runners on. When more than half your team's walks (54.5%) are issued with the bases empty, and you give up more hits with runners on base than not, safe to say you're not doing yourself any favors.
TL;DR - I'm not too shocked by Hefner's dismissal. After several years of mostly the same returns, it was time for a shake-up across the board.
Hugh Quattlebaum still available?
Too soon.
I can see this kind of housecleaning if the Mets had finished under .500 — but let’s not kid ourselves, this is scapegoating the coaching staff for management’s failures.
The front office built a roster with gaping flaws, didn’t address them when the cracks first showed, and then acted stunned when the avalanche hit. You can shuffle hitting coaches and third-base coaches all day, but that doesn’t erase the lack of pitching depth, the bullpen meltdowns, or the poor roster construction that left the team exposed when the injuries piled up.
Yes, the team underachieved, and yes, a 4.95 ERA in the last three months is ugly. But were Hefner and Chávez the ones who passed on real reinforcements at the deadline? Were they the ones who bet on fragile arms and streaky bats? Coaches make tweaks — they don’t set budgets, dictate strategy at the top, or decide to ride “math” until the wheels fall off.
This isn’t accountability; it’s convenient bloodletting. Until the Mets actually address the structural failures of the organization — starting with the people putting the roster together — changing out coaches is just window dressing.
Hefner will have a new job before he goes to bed tonite. He will then impart the Mets pitching lab secrets to whichever team he goes to next. The hitting coaches needed to go. Chavez was never a great hitter when he played. If JD is done playing or they are done punishing Beltran they would be my choices. Why Mendoza gets a free pass is bewildering. I hope Cohen knows where the real blame lies and that’s Stearns. He thought he was smarter than every other GM or president that ever put together a team in the history of baseball and thought he could keep using reclamation projects and other crappy pitchers that he got away with last year and it would work again. It failed spectacularly. He is the main person to blame and Cohen doesn’t need to call him out publicly but I hope he laid into him.
Go look up Eric Chavez statistical performance in his peak years from his age 22 season in 2000 through his age 28 season in 2006, before he got hurt. Pretty pretty good. None of that means he was a bad or good hitting coach. But he like Hefner had been here for a long time. Incidentally Hefner was a pretty subpar pitcher for 2 seasons.
Mendoza doesn't get a free pass, but he was hired by Stearns, whereas the two inherited Chavez, Barnes, Hefner, Danny Barnes.
Stearns, likely with consultation with Cohen and Eppler on his way out elected to keep staff rather than send them packing. They had 2 extra years to prove their value. They failed.
you can churn coaches all you want, but if the front office hands you a roster made of bubblegum and duct tape, you’re not winning.
The Mets’ 2025 roster really was half a Triple-A lineup at times. You had Lindor, Alonso, Soto holding it down, but around them? Rookies pressed into service, guys who should’ve been depth pieces playing everyday roles, constant shuttle between Syracuse and Queens. That’s not on Mendoza, that’s on the GM.
And the rotation? Brutal. No true ace, no anchor. Just a rotating cast of “maybe he’ll give us five innings if his arm doesn’t fall off tonight.” You can’t compete in the NL East when the Braves and Phillies are running out frontline starters and you’ve got a patchwork staff.
This coaching purge to me, is scapegoating. Fire the hitting coach, the pitching coach, shuffle the deck chairs, but the real issue is roster construction. Mendoza made a lot of the right tactical moves, but you can’t play chess if half your pieces are pawns glued together.
If the GM doesn’t deliver a legit ace and two solid bats this offseason, it doesn’t matter if they bring in the ghost of Casey Stengel to coach.
Managers, coaches, owners, and so on are not fungible. They matter.
A bad team or a team with injuries or whatever won't become good with a good manager. But managers and all the rest do affect the win/loss record. It isn't all on the players.
I don't mind some housecleaning, but ultimately, the buck stops where? Stearns and Mendoza, I would say (other than the owner), and they are both still here. Of the bunch, Hefner seems like the guy it will be hardest to replace, even if no one is irreplaceable.
Now it's time for the serious stuff.
At the end of the day it is the players putting on the uniforms that are to blame. No coach or manager carries a satchel of pixie dust that they can sprinkle on to full grown adult humans. The coaches who were let go today had been with the organization from as early as 2020, Hefner, 2022 for Chavez & Barnes.
The construction of this roster has the fingerprints of the following GMs on it:
Sandy Alderson
Brodie Van Wagenen
Zack Scott
Billy Eppler
David Stearns
Stearns took ownership of the roster because he can't pass the buck. But he did not select everyone and has had to allow contracts he inherited to fade away.
As terrible as it seems, a realist knows that the Mets were making a bridge attempt in 2024, it went off way better than anyone could have fantasized. That result along with a giant checkbook allowed the Mets to seduce Juan Soto to buy into the rest of his career in Flushing.
The attempt to try to repeat that in 2025 was ill fated, but it was done in the design to get system to where it needed to be, which is now a consensus top 5. The pitching this organization is developing will tell the tale of the next 3-5 years. And the combine fruits of their player development system will allow them to make the moves to add veteran pitchers that are desperately needed.
Senga, Manaea, Peterson could have pitched competently this season and the Mets should have easily won 88-90 games. They did not. Especially post deadline.
My question is what part of the Mets pitching injury problems lie with the pitching coaches? The pitching lab? I mean who ever heard of a lat strain until a few years ago? Who heard of all the muscle pulls they go through now? Maybe some of these guys have trained wrong, over-trained or what? Hefner could not get Peterson out his funk late in the year, (and I am of fan of his stuff that he is an above average pitcher). Did he get Helsely out? The kids came up from the minors, and McLean in particular had a better idea about how to pitch than most of the vets