Seeking peak performance with new hire

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Mets hired a new manager last month and constructed a new coaching staff around him, but maybe their biggest offseason change that doesn’t involve the roster is yet to come.

In this era of analytics, the Mets will more closely monitor statistics of a different sort, with the hiring of a high performance director to oversee players’ health and institute policies throughout the minor league level. According to assistant general manager John Ricco, the Mets are interviewing candidates for the position, as part of an overhaul of the medical staff.

Teams in various other sports, especially soccer and basketball, have increasingly added the position in recent years. But the trend is building in baseball — the Mariners are among the teams that recently hired a high performance director. The Nationals and Cardinals were among the teams that added the position last offseason.

“One of the things that have changed is just the amount of medical information we have now,” Ricco said this week at the general managers’ meetings. “It used to be you had your two trainers and maybe your strength and conditioning coach and that was your medical department.”

The Mets employ a mental skills coach and nutritionist and consult with sleep experts. But after a 70-92 season in which the Mets couldn’t keep their best players on the field, a decision was reached to overhaul the system. Longtime trainer Ray Ramirez was fired, and team brass decided a restructuring of the medical department was necessary.

The high performance director will head the department, receiving reports from various members of the medical staff to build a complete picture of the player’s health.

“You have a lot more data coming in, so the idea of having somebody who sits on top of all that and pulls it all together is kind of the direction a lot of sports teams are headed and we are headed as well,” Ricco said. “Somebody who is less hands on, who sort of analyzes from the top down the overall wellness of the player in all aspects. Not just the trainer, who is worried about getting the players out there for that particular day.”

The Blue Jays last year were among the teams to add a high performance director, who instituted changes to the type of food that was available in the organization’s minor league clubhouses and recommended a playing schedule for veteran players in spring training, to reduce at-bats. The team also added yoga classes. But various metrics to monitor fatigue — when a player is most susceptible to injury — are also employed. Those numbers help inform team officials when a player should be rested.

“We feel we have the components, mental skills coach at the major league level, we have the physical therapist now that travels with the team,” Ricco said. “Now the next step is somebody to oversee all that. The increase in the data and some of the new technologies that can provide you with information about the player’s current health status has also been a recent change, so you really didn’t have all this information four or five years ago.”

The Mets can only hope the new structure will reverse the club’s fortunes in keeping players healthy. Last season, the Mets lost Noah Syndergaard, Jeurys Familia, Yoenis Cespedes, Matt Harvey and Steven Matz, among others, for extended stretches with various injuries. The team’s strength and conditioning coach, Mike Barwis, was retained, but the team decided to replace Ramirez as part of the restructuring.

And so there will be new faces in the clubhouse among non-players other than manager Mickey Callaway and his staff when the Mets convene for spring training in February.

“We’re kind of copying what some other teams are doing,” Ricco said, referring to the high performance director. “Soccer has been ahead of the curve in this regard. Our sport is a little different, so you want to have somebody who has an idea about baseball, as well, but the model is similar to what has been going on in some other sports.”

Mets tickets for next season will go on sale Friday at 10 a.m., through Mets.com/tickets or by calling (718) 507-TIXX.

Available tickets include Opening Day against the Cardinals on March 29 and the Subway Series at Citi Field, June 8-10.