Mets purge coaches ... except for Hefner
The Mets have cleared the coaching decks for their next head of baseball operations, although they viewed one instructor as too valuable to jettison altogether.
As first reported by SNY, the Mets will retain pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, albeit not necessarily in that role, as the club holds a team option on his contract. Hefner, 35, is highly regarded by the current Mets brass. Team president Sandy Alderson ran the Padres when they selected Hefner in the fifth round of the 2007 amateur draft and then selected Hefner off waivers for the Mets in 2011. So, Hefner figures to hold a strong shot at coaching the 2022 pitchers under a new manager. The Mets dismissed Luis Rojas earlier this week.
The rest of Rojas’ coaches received less encouraging news. Hitting coaches Hugh Quattlebaum and Kevin Howard, who replaced Chili Davis and Tom Slater in the middle of the 2021 season, will return to the minor leagues from whence they came, Quattlebaum as the organization’s director of hitting and Howard the director of player development. Both men are under contract for 2022.
The remainder of the major league staff — Jeremy Accardo (assistant pitching) Ricky Bones (bullpen) Gary DiSarcina (third base), Dave Jauss (bench), Brian Schneider (quality control) and Tony Tarasco (first base, outfielders and baserunning) — will be allowed to seek jobs in other organizations. Their contracts all expire at the end of this month.
Hefner won’t gain job certainty until the Mets hire their next manager, which in turn won’t happen until the Mets select the person to run their baseball operations. With former Red Sox and Cubs hero Theo Epstein out of the race, the Mets’ top two choices are believed to be Athletics executive vice president of baseball operations Billy Beane and Brewers president of baseball operations David Stearns.
Both are under contract with their respective teams and therefore would likely require compensation in return for their liberation.