Francisco Lindor’s Paltry Performance Leads To Firing Of Mets Hitting Guru Chili Davis

by Kevin Moore | May 5, 2021 | THE THREE SPOT

The New York Mets pitching has been outstanding this season, but their anemic bats have them struggling to reach .500. Their $340 million man Francisco Lindor is batting a paltry .163 with one home run and hitting coaches Chili Davis and Tom Slater paid for Lindor’s rough start with their jobs. 

The New York Post stated that Davis said he would probably still have his job if Lindor was producing at the plate. 

Lindor was not a happy camper when he found out that Davis was fired. In an interview with SportsNet New York, he said,  “It broke my heart and I was sad.” 

After the Mets suffered a 6-5 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on May 3, the decision was made to pull the plug on the two hitting coaches. Zack Scott, acting general manager of the Mets, briefly touched on why the call was made. 

“It’s based more on a vision for what we want our major league hitting program to be,” Scott said according to the New York Times. “I’m not going to dive too deep into those details to reveal what that vision is, necessarily, but the process under the hood that’s going on is really what’s important. It’s not about results. It’s not about 23 games of results.”

 Davis, an accomplished MLB Bro who finished his career with 350 homers and 2,380 career hits, was known as the consummate professional hitter and had been working with Mets hitters since 2018. 

Davis says he had a strange feeling that his job could possibly be up in the air. In an article from the New York Post, Davis talked about how dedicated he was to the Mets and he had no regrets about his job performance.  

“I put in the time, I put in the hours, I worked my ass off, and wherever I went, I gave it what I had and what I know. And I just hope that whatever I left with these guys, I hope they take it and use it to become good players because there is a great group of guys here. A great group of guys,” said Davis.

Davis is no stranger to the hitting coach position. Before joining the Mets, he served as the hitting coach for the Oakland Athletics, Boston Red Sox, and Chicago Cubs. The three-time MLB All-Star played from 1981 to 1999. 

There’s no telling where Davis’ next venture will be, but this 61-year-old deserves to be on some teams coaching staff, and hopefully, that will happen sooner rather than later.