Phil Regan Hiring Brings Underperforming Mets Back to the Future
With MLB teams now choosing pitching coaches from colleges and other diverse sources, given the new science of pitching, only Brodie Van Wagenen and the New York Mets would have chosen an octogenarian. Even though that octogenarian had been a roving minor league pitching instructor for the Mets since 2009, before he was an octogenarian.
That’s back to the future, Brodie Van Wagenen style.
The choice was an 82-year-old pitcher known as “The Vulture,” Phil Regan, whose professional baseball career began in 1956 with the Detroit Tigers.
That Regan was even chosen was due to the bizarre underperformance of the entire Mets’ pitching staff during this 2019 season. A season that Brodie Van Wagenen had boasted, unprecedentedly, would be the Mets’ year.
Instead, the Mets’ season has been marred by one pitching breakdown after another, throwing Van Wagenen into a panic. So much so, Van Wagenen felt compelled to do something, anything, to change the karma. That’s why he fired Dave Eiland, who had been the pitching coach. That’s why he threw a chair the other day during meetings with Mickey Calloway and the coaching staff. As if breaking a chair was the answer.
Van Wagenen was quoted in the New York Times saying: “We have fallen short of a variety of things as a team … We all have to look ourselves in the mirror for that shortcoming.”
Van Wagenen in the Mirror
Had he brought in an innovative pitching coach from a college, as several major league teams have already done this season, then it might be possible to say Van Wagenen was looking ahead. Possible to say he had a new vision for the team. But Phil Regan? Even as interim pitching coach.
Isn’t that more back to the future?
This is not a knock on Regan. But he is not associated with biomechanics and the latest technology directly associated with today’s pitching mastery.
Furthermore, the move makes one wonder if Van Wagenen and the Mets understand the way data is being used to devise more effective pitch sequences now? Or that some teams have tailored specific tactics to take advantage of each pitcher’s stuff and physiology? Does any of this sound familiar?
Had the Mets followed the success of the Minnesota Twins’ pitching staff this season, perhaps their new pitching coach might be a copy of the Twins’ Wes Johnson, who has completely changed the Twins pitchers for the better. One of the reasons for the Twins success this season.
In fairness, Van Wagenen has created the position of Pitching Strategist. But he promoted the Mets’ minor league pitching coordinator, Jeremy Accardo, to fill the role. Given the inconsistency of Met pitching, isn’t it time to look outside the organization? Creating a role does not solve the problem.
Phil Regan’s Days with Sandy Koufax
Admittedly, in his day, Regan was an excellent relief pitcher, especially after the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired him from the Detroit Tigers. It was with the Dodgers that Regan was nicknamed the Vulture. In 1966 he went 14-1 out of the bullpen for the Dodgers with a 1.62 ERA. Many of those victories coming at Koufax’ expense. Anyone who pitched alongside Sandy Koufax has seen greatness in action. Regan remembers:
Sandy Koufax had started a game in Los Angeles against Jim Bunning and the Phillies. They went 12 innings, and I think he struck out 16 guys. A tie game, and they took him out for a hitter. I come in, pitch one inning, got the win. Four days later, he went to Pittsburgh, he pitched eight innings, struck out 10 guys, took him out for a pinch-hitter. I come in, pitched an inning, got the win. … So I had two wins and he had pitched like 20 innings, struck out 26 guys and didn’t have a win. And he came in the clubhouse and said, “Regan you’re a real vulture, getting my wins like that.” From there, the press picked it up.
As effective as Regan was 50 years ago, his hiring by the Mets was just one more example, as if any more were necessary, of the Mets’ back to the future predilection.
Casey Stengel and Connie Mack
Casey Stengel, the Mets first manager, was 72 years old when he accepted the job in 1962. He managed through the 1965 season. But baseball was a different game then and Stengel had been the Yankee manager during their great era of the 50s. So, his hire was about more than managing.
Just as the game was played at an even slower pace when Connie Mack managed the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 to 1950, before he retired in 1950 at 88 years old.
So, it’s unusual to hire field managers in their 80s in baseball today. Joe Maddon of the Chicago Cubs is the oldest manager in baseball today at 65.
Brent Strom, the pitching coach of the Houston Astros, was the oldest pitching coach in baseball until Phil Regan’s appointment to the post. Strom is 70 years old and has adopted a data-driven approach to working with Houston’s pitchers. Strom is one of the leading advocates and adherents of the latest pitching technologies in MLB.
The problem for the Mets is Phil Regan is not Brent Strom, and neither is Mets’ pitching in the same ballpark as Houston’s staff. Furthermore, Brodie Van Wagenen is not Jeff Luhnow, and Fred and Jeff Wilpon are not Jim Crane. And that’s all it takes to consistently look like the clowns of baseball. Gross incompetence.
There is no leadership at the top of the Mets’ pyramid. No vision. No management skills. In short, Phil Regan is yet one more example of dysfunction in Flushing Meadow.
Good luck changing the culture, Brodie.
