Chili Davis was fired as hitting coach of the New York Mets in May and was under contract with the team until Oct. 31. Now that his contract with the team has expired, he is finally speaking out about the organization.
Davis spoke with the New York Post’s Mike Puma for an interview that was published on Friday. Davis did not hold back and said he thinks the Mets need to make major changes.
“That organization needs a big turnaround, they need to clean house,” Davis told the Post. “Some of the people that have been there so long during those dismal years, they need to bring some fresh faces and baseball people in there.”
Davis also said interim general manager Zack Scott, who is no longer with the team, was not suited to be a GM because he was more of an analytics guy and should have stuck to that.
Davis, 61, was in his third season as the Mets’ hitting coach. He was hired in November 2018 after being fired by the Cubs after the 2018 season. He was the Cubs’ hitting coach for just one season.
The timing of his firing made little sense; he was let go just a month into the season. Anyone who knows statistics could tell you that is too small of a sample size from which to draw conclusions. But Scott said the firing had more to do with the processes involved rather than the results.
Davis made sure to share with Puma how he is not against analytics. He explained that he feels analytics have their purpose and can be a useful tool, but the data must be combined with other factors when weighing information. He gave a great example about a Jake Arrieta start against the Mets where the analytics team provided some information that Davis questioned. The analytics team said Mets hitters shouldn’t worry about Arrieta’s changeup because he had hardly been throwing it. However, Davis recalled previous starts by Arrieta against the Mets when he threw his changeup more. Davis turned out to be correct about his questions/observations, as Arrieta threw his changeup more in the start against the Mets than the analytics department said the pitcher would.
Davis believed him questioning some of the data did not go over well, even if he was proved to be right. The Mets were actually ninth in MLB in batting averaged when Davis was fired and 21st in team OPS. They finished the season 20th and 24th in those categories.
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