Professional sports provides little to no job security, especially when it comes to coaching. Chili Davis found this to be true on Monday night after he was fired from his post as New York Mets hitting coach. If you look at the surface level issues of the Mets batting this season, it’s easy to tell that there are issues. OPS wise, the Mets are ranked 20th in the league with a .688 mark, and their slugging percentage sits at .364, which is 27th in the league. The Mets are last in home runs hit, and have an anemic .209 batting average with runners in scoring position. Not good numbers for a lineup that features the likes of Francisco Lindor, Michael Conforto, and Pete Alonso.
Despite these marks, the timing of the firing came during an odd time. The Mets were coming off of a 6-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night, and had just finished a three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies where they had scored a combined 14 runs across the series. The Mets players, in jest, had an odd explanation for their sudden burst of run production on Saturday night. Donnie Stevenson, the name of an apparently fictional hitting coach, was receiving the credit for the sudden outburst of offense from the Amazins’.
The jokes were rampant on Twitter, as Stevenson became the talk of post-game press conferences.
The Donnie Remix. pic.twitter.com/Id1QpQ0gyU
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) May 2, 2021
. @STR0 is a legend for rocking #DonnieStevenson pregame #LGM pic.twitter.com/ciHKOTdPXg
— Athlete Logos (@athletelogos) May 4, 2021
Yet when Davis was fired after the game Monday night, the jokes about Stevenson had quickly come to a halt, and players proved to be pretty upset about the firing of Davis. “It really caught us all off guard. It’s confusing for me, and, listen, I respect everybody who made that decision. But to me, it just doesn’t make sense right now” Alonso told reporters on Tuesday night.
Francisco Lindor on the firings: "It broke my heart. I was sad."
— Steve Gelbs (@SteveGelbs) May 4, 2021
When Davis was asked whether or not he thought that the Stevenson jokes had anything to do with him being fired, his response was surprising. “The players were having fun and I know they didn’t mean any harm,” Davis told the New York Post. “It was a fun time for them, but it probably didn’t help. People were just trying to loosen up as a group and it worked that night. They went out and put some runs on the board. I am all for them enjoying the game.”
Was Davis inciting that the Mets were poking fun at him? Or did he just get caught in the crosshairs of a situation of odd timing? Was Donnie Stevenson a way that Mets players were sending a message that they didn’t need Davis? Any of those are possibilities, but the whole situation is just another sour taste in the mouth of a season that was supposed to be one of redemption for the Mets. After the Wilpons sold the team to Steve Cohen, a new age of Mets baseball was supposed to take place. Yet, this season is showing shades of seasons past.
Whether it be Francisco Lindor so far not living up to the mammoth contract extension that the Mets gave him prior to opening day, much in the style of the infamous Jason Bay contract in 2010. Or even the firing of Davis late at night after a game, much like when they fired Willie Randolph in 2008 after the first game of a west coast road trip. Owners may change hands, and hopefully things improve for the organization under Steve Cohen, but the Mets still have not proven a propensity to change in 2021.