10
2011
Riggleman, Geren To Interview For Mets Bench Coach Job This Week
An article by Hojo's Mojo
According to Andy McCullough of the Star-Ledger, Jim Riggleman will be in New York on Wednesday to interview for the Bench Coach position.
Riggleman stepped down as Nationals manager during an 11-1 stretch this past season out of frustration with his contract situation. That said, he has plenty of experience in the dugout and is very familiar with the National League East, something the Mets are looking for to replace Chip Hale. Riggleman has managed the Padres, Cubs and Mariners before Washington and is very highly regarded as a skipper.
Additionally, Adam Rubin of ESPN New York says Bob Geren will interview for the Bench Coach job as well before Wednesday.
Updated Post Oct. 5
There’s been a lot of buzz going around since Sandy Alderson announced that Bench Coach Ken Oberkfell, Third Base Coach Chip Hale, First Base Coach Mookie Wilson and Bullpen Coach Jon Debus will not return to the major league club for the 2012 season
- It sounds like Terry Collins went to bat for pitching coach Dan Warthen who seemed to be on shaky ground after a poor overall season by the rotation and bullpen including a big regression by opening day starter Mike Pelfrey. “What Dan got out of the majority of our pitchers was very good,” Collins said. “So I thought he deserved an opportunity to stay.”
- The Mets were taken by surprise by Chip Hale who told them he would not be returning because he took the Bench Coach position with the Oakland A’s. The Daily News reported that Sandy Alderson regretted losing Hale who was always very prepared before each game and had a great knowledge of the National League players. Mike Puma of the NY Post, said that Larry Bowa and Jim Riggelman are among the candidates the Mets are considering to replace Hale. Both both are also very close with manager Terry Collins.
- A Mets source told Andy Martino of the Daily News that the team had concerns about Wilson’s work with the outfielders, including their in-game positioning citing Lucas Duda in particular. One interesting note was that Wilson was not told that he was being reassigned, “that’s news to me”, said Wilson who said he would consider another assignment when asked.
- Finally, sources told the News that bullpen coach and former catcher Jon Debus was fired because the team wanted to hire a pitcher to work with the relievers and that the team was unhappy with the catching defense behind the plate this season which was his responsibility.
Original Post Oct. 4
The New York Mets today announced that Bench Coach Ken Oberkfell, Third Base Coach Chip Hale, First Base Coach Mookie Wilson and Bullpen Coach Jon Debus will not return to the major league club for the 2012 season.
Tim Teufel will take over as Third Base Coach and Ricky Bones will become Bullpen Coach. Hitting Coach Dave Hudgens and Pitching Coach Dan Warthen will return to Manager Terry Collins’ staff in the same positions next year.
Hale declined an offer to remain on Collins’ staff and signed a two-year deal as bench coach for the A’s and manager Bob Melvin. He was the Mets’ 3B and infield coach the past two years.
Wilson and Debus will be offered other positions within the organization.
Teufel was the Manager of the Buffalo Bisons (AAA) of the International League for the 2011 season and Bones was Pitching Coach.
The Mets will announce further additions to the Major League coaching staff in the coming weeks.
About the Author: Rob Johnson
28 Comments + Add Comment
NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 24 | 18 | .571 | - |
| Nationals | 23 | 20 | .535 | 1.5 |
| Phillies | 20 | 23 | .465 | 4.5 |
| Mets | 16 | 24 | .400 | 7.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 32 | .256 | 13.5 |
Last updated: 05/18/2013
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I’m glad to see Hale go. Couldn’t put my finger on it but the defense and overall fundamental play declined under his watch. If I’m correct I believe Cookie Rojas once served in a similar role to Hale and overall fundamental play was high caliber under Cooke Rojas.
I think removing Hale is addition by subtraction. Good.
The fundamental pay was poor because we don’t have too many fundamentally sound players.Even Reyes has poor instincts and still makes far too many baserunning mistakes for a 9 year vet.How do you get picked off first by a cathcer lobbing the ball to first?Reyes wasn’t paying attention and walked back to first from his lead without looking.That’s not coaching!
the baserunning end of it would probably be more of Mookie’s job than Hales although i’m not completely sure. And if Mookie was the baserunning guy and this is how the Mets performed than he should go as well, sorry to say.
But I saw a report on Hale once and everything with him was computers, charts and diagrams and it rubbed me the wrong way. We also don’t know how he is as a communicator too. I’m just glad he’s gone and hopefully we get somebody who can COMMUNICATE to these guys what they need to do. Starting in Spring Training.
I was about to question why they didn’t keep Hale, but I see he left out of his own regard.
I figured Mookie could’ve hung around, but I don’t know much about his coaching capabilities.
I don’t exactly support Warthen coming back but I don’t know if there are many options out there to replace him anyway.
Agreed. I would have thought Warthen would have gotten the boot. Looks like Tuefel zoomed past Wally on the in-house choice de-juer.
Zoom past? He was always ahead of Backman if for no other reason than he’s actually been with the organization quite a while.
I say that because Tuefel didn’t get a managerial interview, while Wally World did.
Hale actually got a lot of credit for the overall good D the Mets played last year.
People thought maybe it was his positioning of players but this year it was horrible. The D took a serious backward step even with guys who were real good last year.
I thought Rojas did a great job during his Met tenure.
Oh, I forgot to mention.
I’ll be hoping that Backman gets consideration for the Bench Coach Job. But considering that Teufel, who was the AAA Manager, is only the third base coach… I don’t know.
I’m guessing Buffalo for Wally.
Well congrats to Teufel on the promotion also looks like Teufel being promoted opens the door for Backman possibly being promoted to AAA as well and if true it’s good to see Backman also continue to move up with organization.
I agree!
Still waiting to hear why Oberkfell left…
Hale has already signed on to be bench coach in Oakland.
Mookie has been studying to be a minister, so he may have just decided to put his energy into that.
It’s hard to say why each individual coach is no longer here. they may or may not have been fired.
But I need to know, how did Warthen get through? Was he shredding documents for the Wilpons or something?
Rickey Bones is a rising pitching coach star however I am a bit surprised they promoted him w/ Harvey and other of our potential starting pitchers still developing in the minors. Possibly to work Pelfrey, Niese and … Gee?
Chip Hale is a very good baseball man I am taken aback by Met fans scapegoating Hale. hale didn’t make Daniel Murphy… well be Daniel Murphy defensively. Chip Hale can’t play center-field for Angel Pagen or 1st base for Duda. Chip Hale can’t make throws to 1st base for David Wright. Chip hale isn’t responsible for the defensive ineptitude of Josh Thole.
Chip had certainly had no trouble finding a new job…
Binghamton’s pitching coach Marc Valdes is supposed to be really good too. A guy who’s risen with a lot of the prospects from the low minors up to AA. I’m guessing they want to move him up to Buffalo to work with the guys he’s been working with for a while now.
I read the Tuefel Promotion as clearing space for Backman to take over at AAA.
Could be wrong and just decided to bring him up to replace Hale but I think it isn’t a bad move to keep backman moving along with the Kids he has been coaching all this time.
I’ll miss Mookie’s smile at first base. I hope he stays with the Mets in some capacity. There is no finer gentleman in baseball.
I’ll miss the boo’s that Mookie Wilson used to get when he was introduced at the start of games at Fenway. The first time I heard them booing him I was like huh? How could anyone……..oh yeah, Buckner, forgot about that for a second.
Mookie was offered a job with the organization,he hasn’t decided yet.
“What Dan got out of the majority of our pitchers was very good,”
is collins serious??? ALL the pitchers regressed under his watched, also, most of them since 2008 have gotten hurt someone, i am not putting the blame on him, but under peterson this wasn’t an issue, the bullpen guys were terrible to be modest, the SP guys just had no control or any type of consitency, i mean, what exactly collins went to bat for?? this organization makes me laugh at some of the moves they make, i am not saying chip hale shouldn’t have been let go, the defense and fundamentals weren’t as good i get it, but the MAJOR problem was the pitching, and he SURVIVES???? how does that even makes sense?!?
to be fair, it was reported that the team wanted Hale, but he chose to leave to go work with his BFF Melvin in Oakland.
And I have to agree with you 100% about Warthen. Coaching/managing is a results business, and his results were not good. Time for a change (and heck, they have nothing really to lose)
All this amounts to is re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Sorry, firing or reassigning coaches have very little, or no effect.
So you don’t think Hudgens had any affect that HoJo couldn’t have got?
It makes a difference!
Not the 1B or 3B coach and probably not much difference with the Bench coach either all he really does is serve as a sounding board to the Manager who makes the final decision.
But the Hitting improved under Hudgens and the Pitching has declined since Warthen got here!
I know Dickey likes and the rest like him but the truth of the matter is Warthen isn’t the reason Dickey has pitched so well it was whatever he learned before he got here and everyone else has taken a step back since Warthen was here so I really don’t see why they are not holding him accountable in some way!
Do I blame him for bad pitching? No the Players need to perform.
What I blame Warthen is for not getting through to them!
He imporved this year by going out to the mound more often when they got in trouble but in the end everyone got worse not better as the season wore on.
Somebody here mentioned it and I’m sorry I forgot who but they are right when they say maybe the losses of Rod Barajas and Henry Blanco ran deeper than originally thought because our pitching was better last year with them and both are very good receivers.
I always thought that depending a lot on the pitcher (that is, big difference for some clueless ones like say pelf, and none for a guy like Halladay that runs his own game).
also a good example of a place where saber type #s really can tell the story, but only if you have enough of a sample size, since there are so many variables to consider (beyond just say ERA).
But certainly, having a good catcher helps stabalize things immensely, just like having a strong, GG level 1B suddenly makes the whole infield better.
I mentioned it and stats were shown that tended not to support that notion.
I forget who posted the stats.
And in the end the Pitcher should be coached so that he does not need to rely on the catcher to create the strategy. In that sense the catcher should be similar to the bench coach is to the manager. The bench coach might make suggestions and help to identify and note decisions that might be better but in the end the Pitcher has to make the final decision and execute.
And that to me is the Job of the coach to ensure the Pitcher know what to do and how to execute that decision.
Riggelman will be an excellent addition to this hapless organization. He will be able to teach youngster how to quit when you don’t get your way instantly. Jim riggelman will never b respected in baseball, and if the Mets pick him it will clearly demonstrate they want people who are losers.
I think Riggleman also managed in Chicago. If picked I hope they get his opinion on off season moves that might be made. Another perspective would be helpful, especially from someone who had a deep knowledge of current ballplayers. I don’t know much about the other guy under consideration. I wonder if Riggleman was considered for the Red Sox job. He has the type of personality that would fit wellwith that club. I won’t count his managerial won lost record becausw he was never given a real talented ballclub to manage and did a good job with the Nationals.