The Mets are in the market for a new pitching coach.
Dave Eiland was in the role until June when he was fired and replaced by Phil Regan on an interim basis. Carlos Beltran now has come into the manager job and is looking for the right person to lead the talented pitching staff he has inherited.
According to WFAN baseball insider Jon Heyman, the Mets have interviewed Chris Fetter and Jeremy Hefner for the open position.
Mets interviewed Chris Fetter, U of Michigan pitching coach, for their pitching coach job. They do like a Michigan man. Jeremy Hefner also has interviewed earlier;
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) November 11, 2019The two candidates aren't big names, but they have each picked up valuable experience at different levels of the sport.
Fetter is currently the pitching coach at the University of Michigan. The Wolverines are fresh off a season where they made it all the way to the College World Series and ultimately lost 2-1 to Vanderbilt. Before being hired by Michigan in 2017, Fetter was the minor league pitching coordinator for the Dodgers.
Hefner spent two years pitching for the Mets during a brief career in the big leagues that was shortened by two Tommy John surgeries. He spent 2019 as the assistant pitching coach for the Twins. Minnesota exceeded expectations and reached the postseason partially because of the performances of Jake Odorizzi and the rest of the pitching staff. The Twins had a 4.18 team ERA over the course of the season, which was ninth-best in the league.
The Mets could also still be considering Regan to retain the role permanently, but he's 82-years-old. Both Fetter and Hefner are younger canditates, which may signify the direction the team wants to take things. Heyman reported in October that the team still wanted to keep regain on the staff.
Beltran and company will want to make a decision relatively quickly to have a roster of coaches fully assembled before the offseason really gets going and decisions have to be made about the composition of next year's team. But whoever gets the job is going to be lucky enough to work with a rotation that includes Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Marcus Stroman.
