Following a less than stellar start to 2019 from the pitching staff, the New York Mets dismissed former Yankees and Royals pitching coach Dave Eiland on June 20 and installed 82-year-old baseball-lifer Phil Regan in the interim.

From June 21 through the end of the season, the Mets’ staff as a whole had a 3.84 ERA and accumulated 13.4 wins above replacement (FanGraphs), good for third and first in the National League, respectively.

Compared to the 4.74 ERA (13th) and 7.5 fWAR (sixth) they put up as a group from Opening Day through June 20 when Eiland was fired (670.1 innings; 790.2 innings in the Regan Era), the talented stable of arms in Flushing made evident progress under The Vulture’s watch.

Needless to say — without much staff turnover expected this offseason — most of that talent will still reside in Queens next season. Now that Regan’s been ruled out as returning to the bench in 2020, the Mets have an opportunity to make a considerable leap into the future with their next hire.

As reported by Marc Carig of The Athletic on Saturday night, the Mets “are scheduled to interview” 33-year-old, former pitcher and current Twins assistant pitching coach Jeremy Hefner for the team’s vacant pitching coach position.

Under Hefner’s hypothetical watch, this group would have the potential to grow exponentially. And it all comes down to the interpretation of data and the relaying of that information to the players, which happens to be one of the former Mets hurler’s strong points as a coach and former scout.

In an interview with MetsMerized‘s Mathew Brownstein, Hefner explained his viewpoint of advanced metrics and how he uses them as a preparation tool (he was still an advanced scout with Minnesota at the time of the interview; late-August 2018).

“I think the game has always been analytically inclined, we just say different things now. The game has always been around numbers, right? We just have better ways of quantifying things with Trackman and all of the kitschy terms and popular ones like exit velocity, launch angle, and spin rates. Like guys with high spin rates who throw hard, we used to just say, ‘that guy throws a heavy ball,’.”

“I think [analytics paint] a better picture, it helps me game plan for other teams. Like the A’s (who the Twins were playing that night), it’s no secret — you can get this on any public website –they hit the most fly balls of any team in the big leagues. so whenever I game plan for the A’s, I have that in mind.”

Adding Hefner — a relatable, intelligent, analytically-driven coach — to the coaching staff in Queens would provide the Mets with yet another, to quote Carig’s article, “conduit” for information to travel from the team’s front office and analytics department to the clubhouse.

Carlos Beltran‘s hire was presumably made along the same wavelength, and, in its infancy, appears to be the Mets’ new blueprint for the future. Luis Rojas‘ role, the team’s quality control coach in 2019 and finalist for the managerial job this offseason, is in the same vein — convey the message accurately and effectively.

With a guy like Hefner at the control board of such a talented group in Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz, Marcus Stroman, Seth Lugo, Edwin Diaz, Jeurys Familia, Justin Wilson, Robert Gsellman, and whoever else general manager Brodie Van Wagenen brings in this winter, this staff’s quotient for success could increase substantially.