Saturday, February 19, 2011

Wright says goodbye to his baseball dad

Thre is a story out that David Wright received a call from Howard Johnson when Wright was called up to the big leagues. As Wright stepped off the plane in NY he had a message from his former hitting coach that basically said go break all my records . Ho Jo then became the Mets hitting coach in July 2007 after a stint as the Mets first base coach . Hojo and Wright have been together for a long time and now the former Met is no longer employed by the Mets at this time. 

Wright had this to say about HoJo as told to Adam Rubin

 I think he did everything he could do. I think he was really good for me. I think he was really good for a lot of the other guys. It's baseball. It happens. When a new regime comes in, they want to bring in their own guys. And I think he understands that."


 If you allow HoJo to control the hitting, I think that he'd be an excellent hitting coach. If you let him bring his philosophies in and allow him to do what he's capable of doing, then I think he'd make a heckuva hitting coach."

Wright seems to think that Hojo was curtailed by Jerry Manuel a bit. To me not sure why Jerry would want to instill his hitting philosophies on a player when he wasn't much of a hitter.

Now Wright who still I am sure will have HoJo on speed dial will get to work with new hitting coach David Hudgens. Maybe strikeout Wright can work on cutting down on those K's. The new hitting coach will have some work cut out for him. Hudgens will need to train Wright to stop swinging at junk pitches that are low and away. Or here is an idea maybe teach him to step into them.

It is sad to see HoJo go. Especially that the Mets will be celebrating the '86 team sometime this year. Hopefully there is no bad blood.

1 comment:

metsfan73 said...

No matter what Nuke thinks, there wasn't one player who excelled under Johnson's tutelage after three years. Nukes K's increased significantly and his "clutch" hitting disappeared.
The team as a whole showed poor plate discipline, and the change was most definitely needed. It is a shame HoJo felt he needed to leave. Aside from my disdain for him as a hitting coach, he is still a class act.