Making Sense of the Mets’ Offseason Part 2
At the very beginning of the offseason, David Stearns delivered a clear message: the Mets would not be returning the same group the following season. It was unclear at the time how extensive the overhaul would be or how all-encompassing Stearns’ remarks would now appear. Though soon after, the Mets embarked on almost completely refurbishing their coaching staff, which in hindsight, could have very well been taken as Stearns’ intention of the same group not returning.
As we now turn our attention toward Port St. Lucie, the Mets not only look different, but feel different. What started with a press conference and followed with mass changes to the coaching staff, the Mets’ identity and team philosophy have now been reimagined. While every member of the new staff will play a role in this team’s performance, I would like to focus on two specifically. One being Troy Snitker, who came over from the Astros after what can only be considered a sterling seven-year tenure as their hitting coach. The other, Justin Willard, who had served as the Red Sox director of pitching the past couple of seasons and is viewed as one of the sharpest young pitching minds in the game.
Each of Snitker and Willard has not only a strong track record but also a clear and thought-out approach to what has made them successful. The Astros, as discussed in Part 1, were always near the top of baseball in very specific metrics every year he was there. Those statistics may be viewed as Snitker’s core hitting philosophy or at least the outcome of his hitting process, both of which should continue with the Mets. Under Willard, the Red Sox had success using a very different approach from the mainstream. They implemented a vast number of changes that can be seen not only with their major league team, but throughout the minor leagues as well.
Photo Credit: Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
On merit alone, these two coaches were deserving of their jobs with the Mets. Yet on closer examination, could it be that these two hires were more about the meshing of their two philosophies than about what each one of them brings to the table on his own right? This would therefore shed light on an overarching understanding of how Stearns and the Mets view baseball.
To uncover this matter, we must first determine exactly what each coach’s approach is. And yet, in all fairness, there are a myriad of possibilities as to why the Mets hired both Willard and Snitker. It could be as simple as each coach is trusted and proven in delivering results on their side of the ball. Secondly, we must also consider that the current hitting trends differ from pitching trends and there is no synthesis between their outlooks.
In Boston, Willard’s theory reshaped pitching around a simple but radical premise, deprioritizing the fastball. Instead, preach throwing quality strikes consistently. In its most extreme form, the philosophy holds that pitchers without a “plus” fastball should use it minimally, relying instead on whatever their best pitches are. This approach may seem fairly reasonable and not that radical, yet its results are telling as the Red Sox threw the fewest fastballs ever (since the start of pitch tracking) in 2024.
The modern game has continued to adopt new ideas and trends at a lightning pace, mirroring advancements in technology since the dawn of the sabermetrics era. New terminology like pitching shapes and tunneling has taken over in recent years, leading to new grips and new pitch categorizations. The sweeper, bullet slider, gyro slider, kick-change and death ball have all entered the baseball lexicon over the last dozen years or so. Each may not be new per se, but it speaks to an overall philosophy of pitching, one that is preoccupied with distinguishing any notable differences between pitch shapes.
The tracking of arm angle, release point, and spin has led teams and players to mess around with seam manipulation to elevate a pitcher’s entire repertoire. This has led not only to better pitch shapes and increased use of non-fastballs, but also to pitchers’ repertoires expanding at an unusually high rate. In it of istlf, an expansive repertoire is a good enough reason for a reduction in fastball usage, yet the quality of each non-fastball rising as well stands to reason as an even more noteworthy factor in declining fastball usage.
Yet the fastball remains the most unique offering a pitcher can deliver, with its upsides and downsides. The drawback is that the fastball, among all other pitches, has the highest BAA (Batting Average Against) and the highest SLG% (Slugging Percentage). The upside of the fastball is that, due to its shape, it is the most advantageous pitch in most quadrants of the strike zone. This is a complicated way of saying that a fastball can be placed in the strike zone more often than any other pitch, and it’s not particularly close.
Importantly, every pitch needs to be analyzed through three prisms. One being its shape (or movement and spin), velocity, and location. The combination of these three aspects determines how good a pitch or a pitcher is. Back to Willard’s philosophy, and what is beyond revelatory is as follows: the idea that the Red Sox pitchers were able to throw fewer fastballs and still throw enough strikes.
Last season, the Mets adopted this approach of minimizing fastball usage, but were unable to throw enough strikes to make it work. They fell victim to exactly what should happen when a team throws more offspeed and breaking pitches than the league average and missed the strike zone too frequently while walking too many batters. How Willard’s staff has managed to elude this pitfall is exactly what the Mets hope he can unlock for their staff in 2026.
Meanwhile, Snitker’s tenure as a hitting coach was marked by offenses built around zone awareness, hitting for contact and pull-side power. An ecosystem of skills designed to decrease volatility while stabilizing run creation. Rather than sell out for power, this varied offensive approach is predicated on being multidimensional. In other words, in an era that has become increasingly susceptible to strikeouts, the Astros have remained near the top of the league in making contact.
A little before Snitker took over as hitting coach, teams started chasing launch angles in an effort to hit more home runs. Over a decade later, the league-wide batting average has never been lower, as long swings and uppercuts have diminished many hitters’ ability to make contact. Meanwhile, the Astros maintained a more level approach, both in theory and in practice. Under Snitker, they managed to stay disciplined in the zone and focused on causing damage instead of manufacturing power. That ability is what the Mets surely hope to unlock offensively this year and moving forward.
What remains uncertain, however, is whether Snitker’s offensive theory operates independently as a successful instructional model or whether it forms part of a broader conceptual thread that stretches beyond the batter’s box. We are living in an era with an all-time high in non-fastball usage across baseball, yet within the strike zone, fastballs still appear more frequently than any other pitch. That tension may represent the true inflection point.
Notably, while the Boston Red Sox threw fewer fastballs overall under Justin Willard, their rate of in-zone fastballs remained roughly in line with league average, a distinction that underscores the centrality of command rather than mere pitch selection. In other words, the fastball was not abandoned; it was redistributed with intention. If that is the case, then an important question emerges: Does Willard’s strike-oriented pitching model, rooted in selective fastball usage and command, subtly complement Snitker’s zone-dominant hitting philosophy? And if so, is this alignment incidental or foundational? That intersection between where fastballs are thrown, how often they appear in the zone, and how hitters are trained to attack them will be explored more deeply in Part 3.
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