In the mind of recently fired New York Mets hitting coach Eric Chavez, the biggest reason for the team’s stunning collapse last month falls squarely on President David Stearns and a boatload of failed decisions the last six months.

The moment Mets fans feared became a reality on the final day of the regular season. After being one of the best teams in the league during the first half, they went 38-55 over their last 93 games to complete one of the most shocking collapses in MLB history.

Following their unbelievable finish, the man overseeing their $341 million payroll, David Stearns, did not fire manager Carlos Mendoza, but did dismiss nearly all of his staff, including pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and hitting coach Eric Chavez.

On Thursday, the latter spoke with the Foul Territory Show and revealed that despite the frustrating end to the season, the locker room stayed united until the end.

“The group of guys we had in that room were true professionals. One of the things I always talked about in that clubhouse was having each other’s backs through good times and bad times. The pitchers weren’t complaining about the hitters early in the year, and when the pitchers struggled, I think they were like, ‘Yeah, they picked us up for two months, we’ve got to get it going.’ It was a good clubhouse from that standpoint,” Chavez said.

New York Mets locker room lacked unifying leaders?

While Chavez thinks highly of the 2025 Mets roster, in his mind, the big difference between this year’s team and the one that reached the NLCS in 2024 boiled down to two things: Not having veterans Julio Iglesias and JD Martinez in the clubhouse.

“Baseball’s a funny game. You can spend money and get all the players you want. Clubhouse camaraderie [is important],” he said. “A year ago, we had Iglesias and JD Martinez that kind of unified that clubhouse. You have to organically make those things happen. You can’t just force them into a clubhouse. And I think with those two personalities, it was a great blend.”

Stearns chose not to re-sign either player this offseason. Passing on Martinez was understandable because he had a down season last year. However, the immense value Iglesias brought to the locker room while having a good season was mentioned throughout the season and into the winter.

Considering that he only got a one-year, $3 million deal from the San Diego Padres, it looks like Stearns made a huge mistake by not seeing the infielders’ off and on the field value for a very affordable rate.

Chavez says the New York Mets had an ‘unbelievable’ coaching staff

Many fans grew frustrated with the Mets’ coaching staff and felt they were not getting the best out of a very expensive roster. However, Chavez believes the club had a staff that was “unbelievable.” When explaining what went wrong, he again pointed to other failed decisions by Stearns to adjust the roster during the season.

“I saw this coming, but it’s not fair,” he said. “The coaching staff that we had was unbelievable. Things just didn’t go our way. There were a lot of injuries. A lot of acquisitions that we had didn’t really pan out. But the coaching staff was steadfast. I’ll go to bat for these guys any day… I don’t think any of the coaches should have been fired, to be honest with you.”

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