MMO Roundtable: Was Firing Chili Davis the Right Move?

The news broke late Monday night/early Tuesday morning that the Mets fired hitting coach Chili Davis. Some were surprised by the move, some were not.

Was this the right move?

Jack Ramsey
If we are being completely honest, Davis never should have been hired in the first place. His approach was ruining what is one of the best offenses in baseball, and the offense had their best season when he was away from the team.

People I’ve talked to love both Hugh Quattlebaum and Kevin Howard, and believe they are a solid tandem to help fix the offense. In the end, the fact that a fake hitting coach was getting praise for a recent offensive burst over the actual hitting coach says a lot.

Rob Piersall
The firing of Chili Davis was inevitable, truthfully. He was not hired by this current regime, and while the players liked him, his track record didn’t paint the rosiest of pictures. He was fired by the Chicago Cubs after just one season. Mets general manager, Zack Scott, was also working for the Boston Red Sox when they gave Chili the early hook as well.

The Mets are looking to continue growing analytically and take a step into the new era of baseball. Chili wasn’t going to be able to be that guy to lead them to the promised land.

Sure, 23 games in to fire someone is soon. But the Mets are trying to win now. The Mets have picked it up offensively in recent games, but it doesn’t excuse their team ISO scraping the bottom of the barrel, their home runs being dead last and their OPS in the bottom third of the league. Oh, and Francisco Lindor being 0-for-his-last-25 certainly didn’t help matters, I’m sure.

Marshall Field
I was surprised that Chili Davis was still around after the Cohen regime took over. (And I’m surprised Luis Rojas is still here). Be that as it may, the firing of Davis shows a continued trend of new ownership: that of being quick and decisive. Rojas, who is also a carry over from the previous owners, has to be concerned about his future as Cohen would have no trouble paying off a fired manager’s contract.

We’ll leave the manager for another round table, but for this instance, I think the firing was long overdue and proper. No, a hitting coach can’t make batters do better with runners in scoring position, but he can produce an atmosphere of trust and optimism that frankly I have not seen with Davis. He was always in one corner of the dugout or the other, rarely in any in-game meetings with his players. In fact, some of the players recently conjured up a fictitious coach, largely to replace Davis.

Davis is an example of a good ballplayer but a poor coach. I hate to see good people get fired especially in this day and age, but again, I have to say, it was the right thing to do.

Anthony E. Parelli
Late last week I wrote that Chili Davis’s job was in jeopardy due to the inauspicious offensive start the Mets got off to and took plenty of flack for it in the comment section. But here’s the thing, anyone that’s watched baseball for more than about 15 minutes could see the Met offense was broken, and teams with playoff aspirations can’t just sit around and wait for things to correct themselves.

So even though the team seems to have awoken a bit at the plate, averaging six runs per game over their last three, it was too little too late. An April that saw the Mets last in the majors in runs per game, average with RISP, and home runs was too much to overcome.

And no, all of the Mets offensive futility cannot be pinned on Davis, at some point players have to make plays, it’s the major leagues. But under this new regime, one led by billionaire owner and fan Steve Cohen, one thing seems abundantly clear: Mets brass won’t settle for being the lovable losers, they won’t accept mediocrity. From a personnel standpoint, the team is what it is, there’s no white knight walking through the Citi Field doors in the immediate future a la Yoenis Cespedes in 2015. A shake up can be a good thing, the Mets are hoping it’s season-changing.

Given that the Mets simultaneously announced the elevation of Hugh Quattlebaum to hitting coach signals that the move was planned, not a knee-jerk reaction. It also signals a move more towards an analytical approach at the plate, something promised once this regime took over prior to the season. So, while Davis was universally liked in the clubhouse, and his role in the offense’s struggles may be somewhat overblown, the team seems hopeful a fresh voice in the clubhouse could yield positive results. We’ll see.

Sal Manzo
It may seem a little too soon for the Mets to be making coaching changes, but the firing of Chili Davis feels like a decision that has been looming for weeks thanks to the teams anemic offensive start. This decision also seems to point in the direction of their struggling star Francisco Lindor, as if the firing of Davis will suddenly rid Lindor of his woeful start at the plate.

I think it’s safe to assume that Chili Davis is not the reason for Lindor’s struggles, but between his personal struggles hitting with runners on and the rest of the lineup, Davis ultimately is the person to fall on the sword. The seat is now even hotter for manager Luis Rojas, and if the Mets continue to struggle consistently hit with RISP, he may find himself joining Chili Davis as unemployed.

Michelle Ioannou
In my mind, I have wondered how someone could go this long as a hitting coach with the offense slacking this badly. Especially in terms of deGrom starts, it has been the rhetoric for the past couple of seasons (with a continuation into this season) that the Mets can’t hit when he’s on the mound.

Chili Davis was the common denominator there. Changes needed to happen, and it just wasn’t under Davis. I am not surprised by this firing at all, in fact I thought it was long-overdue.

However, Steve Cohen wasting no time after Monday night’s game did show that he is taking this seriously. He gave Davis a chance, he didn’t rise to the occasion, and that’s that. Now we wait and see if the Mets bats come alive under a new coach.