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Mets find their first scapegoat in pitching coach Eiland

Feb 21, 2019; Port St. Lucie, FL, USA; New York Mets pitching coach Dave Eiland (58) poses for a photo on photo day at First Data Field. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
Dave Eiland in happier days with the New York Mets

It’s Dave Eiland’s fault that Jeurys Familia can’t get anybody out anymore.

It’s Dave Eiland’s fault that Steven Matz can;t get through a first inning without putting his team in a hole.

It’s Dave Eiland’s fault that Jacob deGrom isn’t duplicating his 2018 Cy Young season in 2019, that Noah Syndergaard pulled a hamstring, that Zack wheeler cant keep opposing hitters in the ballpark, that Justin Wilson never seems to heal and that Edwin Diaz has been less than lights out in his first season as a Met.

Of course, Dave Eiland had nothing to do with the resurgence of Jason Vargas, the effectiveness of Seth Lugo out of the bullpen or the sudden transition of Chris Flexen into a flamethrower.

In short, everything wrong with the Mets pitching staff has been the fault of Dave Eiland. Everything that has gone right with it was purely by accident. Or maybe through the brilliance of Brodie Van Wagenen.

The point is that firing a coach, be it a pitching coach, a hitting coach, a third-base coach -- while we’re pointing fingers, how does Gary DiSarcina still have a job after Wednesday night’s disaster? -- a strength and conditioning coach, or a bullpen coach, as the Mets did on Thursday along with Eiland, doesn’t cure anything.

No pitching coach can make Familia into Mariano Rivera any more than Chili Davis, the Mets hitting coach, can turn Todd Frazier into Alex Rodriguez.

Coaches fine-tune big-league talent. They don’t create it. And right now, the Mets need more than a little fine-tuning. They need to be bulldozed to the foundation and rebuilt. That is not a coaches’ job.

That is on the general manager.

And that is why the firing of Eiland before Thursday’s game against the Chicago Cubs is nothing more than scapegoating, one of the few categories the Mets seem to annually lead the league in.

Last year, it was Terry Collins and Sandy Alderson, and to a lesser extent, John Ricco.

So far, this year, it is Eiland.

Soon, it could be DiSarcina, or Glenn Sherlock, or the team chef or its Pilates trainer.

Eventually, it will be Mickey Callaway.

But no matter how many uniformed personnel the Mets purge in an artificial attempt to right their sinking ship, there is no escaping where the blame lies.

With the general manager. And, with the owner who hired him.

Less than half a season into his rookie campaign as a GM, it is clear that Van Wagenen’s attempt to build a winning roster was a dumpster fire.

Likewise, owner Jeff Wilpon’s decision to roll the dice on a smooth-talking former agent to run his baseball team looks like a major disaster.

Of course, Wilpon is going nowhere. His family bought the ballclub for $386 million about 30 years ago and now, in spite of decades of abject failure occasionally interrupted by temporary success, the thing is worth over $2 billion. Who says winning is everything?

And neither, for the moment, is Van Wagenen. He got the job not by laying out a coherent plan for a Mets rebuild, but by identifying what Wilpon most wanted to hear -- that his team was just a minor tweak or two away from the club that went to the 2015 World Series. That was an agent doing a sales job. Wilpon bought it and he’s not about to admit to buyer’s remorse, not with three years left on Van Wagenen’s contract.

So now, the Mets, their fans, and as of Thursday, Dave Eiland, are paying the bill.

In fairness, Eiland was not the easiest character to be around. When he was the Yankees pitching coach, the word on the beat was that he “always had the ass,’’ baseball slang for constantly being in a pissy mood. Ten years and three coaching jobs later, his demeanor had not changed.

Maybe he rubbed some of the pitchers the wrong way. The motto of this team, under both Callaway and Van Wagenen, is Players First, and no matter who was in charge, the lunatics always seemed to run the Flushing asylum.

But according to sources within the team, none of the Mets pitchers seemed to have a problem with Eiland.

If true, that can only mean one thing: Van Wagenen fired Eiland in preparation for firing his manager next. Remember, Van Wagenen did not hire Callaway, he inherited him. He also inherited the coaches Callaway hired. Eiland was one of them, along with DiSarcina, first base coach Sherlock, assistant hitting coach Tom Slater and “quality control’’ coach Luis Rojas.

They might all be wise to update their resumes ASAP. The coaches hired by Van Wagenen -- notably, Davis and bench coach Jim Riggleman (considered by some the manager-in-waiting) -- are probably safe, although who knows? Chuck Hernandez, the bullpen coach sacrificed along with Eiland, came abard a few weeks after Van Wagenen was hired.

But firing any one of those inherited guys can only be interpreted as a warning shot fired over the head of the manager. Whacking Eiland was the first of what could be several shots fired in Callaway’s direction.

To be sure, Callaway has not done a good job with this team. His bullpen decisions have been questionable, his in-game strategy puzzling and the reasoning for his moves never fails to leave you scratching your head.

But it’s not his fault that he’s saddled with a poorly-constructed roster, or that his owner refuses to put any of his profits back into payroll -- remember when Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel were available -- or that he is stuck having to play Frazier and Robinson Cano, both of whom look washed, nearly every night, or that even his most highly-touted pitchers have failed to live up to their billing.

That last, maybe, is on Callaway. He came to the Mets on the strength of his reputation as a pitching coach for the Cleveland Indians, but on his watch deGrom, Syndergaard, Wheeler and Matz have not morphed into Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, Trevor Bauer and Mike Clevinger. Diaz has not become Andrew Miller circa 2017. If anything, there has been regression all around.

For that, someone had to pay and on Thursday, it was Dave Eiland. His replacement is 82-year-old Phil Regan.

Eiland is certainly not the first pitching coach to be used as a scapegoat and he almost certainly will not be the last scapegoat on the 2019 Mets if they don’t turn their season around.

But as usual, the real architects of the 2019 Mets, the ones who built the shaky foundation upon which this team is tottering, are in no danger.

Nothing is their fault, until the scapegoats run out.