In some ways, the Chili Davis firing was a surprise. After all, you don’t fly a hitting coach out to a city and fire him after one game. You also don’t see it happen just as the team starts scoring runs again.

On the other hand, this was not a surprising move in the least. Even with the recent surge, the New York Mets overall offensive performance was dismal, and Francisco Lindor still has not hit yet.

There’s another factor here as well – Zack Scott. The Mets interim GM was part of the Boston Red Sox analytics department. For years, we’ve heard how Davis’ approach and the more analytical approach doesn’t jive, and to that end, we see a disconnect which usually results in the coach getting fired.

Unfortunately, none of that was a sufficient explanation. There were reporters who went to Peter Alonso and his Donnie Stevenson joke as either a root cause or contributing factor.

For those who forgot, Alonso jokingly indicated Donnie was the reason for the breakout. Everyone knew it was a joke, and even Steve Cohen joined in the fun:

I love Donnie . A major resource to the team and pretty cheap too

— Steven Cohen (@StevenACohen2) May 2, 2021

Here’s the problem. People can’t let fun things be just that.

Mike Puma of the New York Post asked Davis about it and the role in his firing. He “chuckled” at it, and he said:

It was a fun time for them, but it probably didn’t help. People were just trying to loosen up as a group and it worked that night. They went out and put some runs on the board. I am all for them enjoying the game

According to Davis, he thought it was a fun thing, and in the interview, he noted he believes he’d still have the job if Lindor was hitting. To a certain extent, the fact that Davis did speak to it not helping matters did make it a bit of a fair game to ask Alonso and the other players about it.

There’s just one problem with that. Before speaking with Davis or Alonso, that question had already been posed to Scott when he made himself available to the media after the firing. When pressed on the Donnie Stevenson angle, Scott had replied:

I think that should highlight that this isn’t about recent results. This is about the process behind the scenes. Whether we’re not hitting with runners in scoring position or knocking 17 hits or whatever we had last night, it’s not about that. It’s too early to be overreacting to small samples of results. It’s really about what the daily process is and the assessment — my assessment from doing a lot of research and observations of my own was that we can be better and this is a step towards that.

Put another way, this was about “process.” It didn’t have to do with Alonso’ creation of Donnie Stevenson and the players having some fun with that. It also really didn’t have to do with Lindor not hitting. This was a GM who had been involved in the firing of Davis in Boston, and as the GM, he once again had an issue with Davis’ process, and he once again took part in his firing.

Despite Scott speaking to that, there were articles written about the Donnie Stevenson effect, and then Alonso was asked about it. Aside from the effect the link had already been dismissed, Alonso was surprisingly candid in his responses, and he was obviously emotional about it. Despite that, Alonso was asked about the impact he had on the firing even after the obviously tenuous link had been dismissed.

To even suggest Alonso had a part in the firing of Davis is extraordinarily unfair, and frankly, it’s a cheap shot levied at a person who was honest and emotional about the firing. Alonso deserved much better than that, and anyone suggesting the player who started off the year with a 142 wRC+ to start the season had any impact on Davis being fired owes Alonso an apology.