New York Mets’ southpaw Steven Matz is excited to work with new pitching coach Jeremy Hefner this season.
Speaking to the media at Citi Field’s inaugural New York Mets Fan Fest, the Long Island native talked about how Hefner is analytic-forward and is a good communicator.
Steven Matz on Jeremy Hefner pic.twitter.com/JJVWukoqnf
— Tim Ryder (@TimothyRRyder) January 25, 2020
“He understands the analytics side of it really well and he understands how to communicate that to guys that are playing,” Matz said. “You can make sense of it and you can translate that.”
Matz added that analytics can be tough sometimes as a player and translating that to on-field performance, but he thinks Hefner will do a good job of being patient and making it easy to grasp.
“All of this analytics is new but sometimes it’s tough for us to understand what it even means and how we can make adjustments based off of that stuff,” Matz added. “He’s really good at articulating and giving us cues to make small adjustments.”
Matz, 28, is entering his sixth year as a Met, and is coming off a campaign where he logged a career high 160.1 innings pitched. In 32 games (30 started), Matz had a 4.21 ERA, 4.60 FIP, 1.341 WHIP and 2.2 rWAR.
The left-hander also talked about Carlos Beltran, and how it was sad to hear the news that he and the Mets parted ways, but that it’s behind the team now and they are looking forward to working with Luis Rojas.
“It was difficult to hear that news, especially for him because you know he was excited to lead this team,” Matz said. “But ultimately it’s behind us now. We’ve got Luis Rojas as our manager and we’re all really excited about that as well.”
Matz added that while it’s a tough situation, they are gearing up for the season and moving forward with Rojas.
Matz is arbitration eligible again next year and can become a free agent in 2022.
