Of Walling and Hitting Coaches

The firing of hitting coach Denny Walling yesterday was quite unfortunate. It’s sad when good people get fired but at the same time the numbers don’t lie. The Mets hitters are toward the bottom of almost every statistical category as a team most glaringly their .102 average with the bases loaded.

I’m not much of a fan of firing coaches in the middle of a season(unless it’s a reshaping of a staff in the wake of firing a manager). However I do believe that this is a good move. For one thing, it shows the players that management will not stand idly by while things go to pot. (“It’s your coach now but next time it’ll be one of you.”)For another, it shows the coaches and players that there is accountability within the organization. (“That’s right, Art. You are accountable too.”)

But why Walling? As mentioned above the Mets hitting (as a team) has been mostly lousy. That in and of itself would be enough to make Walling the scapegoat. But also working against Walling is that the Mets already have one of the best (if not the best) hitting coaches in the game already sitting on their bench in the form of bench coach Don Baylor. I always figured Baylor was there to become the next manager for when Art Howe is fired (and that still may happen) but this is not a bad idea either.

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