Veteran pitching coach Dave Eiland was one of the very first names connected with the New York Mets once they decided that Dan Warthen was not going to return to the team in 2018.
Mike Maddux went to the St. Louis Cardinals, Chris Bosio to the Detroit Tigers, Jim Hickey to the Chicago Cubs and some fans started wondering what the Mets were waiting for.
Though the Mets didn’t officially add Eiland to the coaching staff until yesterday, it was reported on Nov. 1 that New York would hire the coach that won a World Series ring against the Mets in 2015.
Eiland had already reached out to a few of Mets starting pitchers before his deal was announced including Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.
New manager Mickey Callaway and Eiland came up with an offseason pitching program that they have sent to everyone pitcher that is currently on the 40-man roster. The program is going to start mid-December and Eiland says he will touch base at least once a week according to Marc Carig of Newsday.
The big discussion recently has been about whether or not the Mets should limit some of their pitchers from pitching a third time through and order, Eiland told Carig, “there’s going to be nights when your fourth and fifth starter pitch like ones and twos and get deeper into the game than you thought they would. You use the numbers, you use the data. But you also trust your eyes, your experiences, and use common sense.”
Eiland and Callaway already seem to be on the same page with each other in regards to what could be the make-or-break factor in the Mets 2018 season, the pitching staff. A pitching staff that was either injured or under-performed, and some cases both in 2017 outside of deGrom.
The Mets saw their team ERA jump from 3.58 in 2016 to 5.01 this past season but Eiland still sees a reason to be optimistic, “The sky’s the limit, and that’s for anybody who has watched these guys and seen their ability. But the key — and all 30 teams are talking about this — the key is health.”
