Mets' Hitting Coach Issued Apology To Players For Disappointing 2023 Season
The New York Mets' had a down year offensively in 2023 after shifting hitting coach Eric Chavez to the bench coach role and replacing him with assistant Jeremy Barnes.
This move did not work out, as the Mets won just 75 games, scoring 4.43 runs per game, finishing with a .723 OPS and ranking 26th in the league with a team batting average of .238.
As a result, they switched Chavez back to hitting coach and reverted Barnes back to his main assistant role.
This led to an apology from Chavez at the beginning of spring training, where he spoke to some players to let them know he felt “disconnected” and apologized for not doing a better job, as Chavez told Newsday.
“He felt like we had a lot of success in ‘22 and he was sorry that he wasn’t there to replicate that,” Mets center fielder Brandon Nimmo told Newsday. “But it was a short conversation. And I kind of just stopped him. Like, listen, it’s not your fault that the season ended up the way that it did.”
Former top prospect third baseman Brett Baty, who had an rough first season in the big-leagues, which saw him get demoted to Triple-A Syracuse, chimed in as well.
“He was like, I’ve been looking back on the year, and I’m sorry that I was doing all these other things and I wasn’t there enough for y’all. We were like, every time we asked you a question, you would help us out and everything.”
Now that he will be more involved, the Mets are hopeful that Chavez can rediscover the offensive success he had with their hitters, which resulted in an 101-win season in 2022.
