Trevor May: Cohen’s Accessibility, Hefner’s Presence Led to Picking the Mets

The pitcher that the Mets are getting in Trevor May, ironically, came to form against them in 2019.

Inheriting a 3-2 lead in the seventh inning at Target Field on July 17, May hung an 0-2 curveball to Dominic Smith, who deposited it over the fence. The Mets went on to win 14-4.

The curveball, up until that day, had been a pitch May utilized 20 percent of the time. Following a post-game conversation with then-Twins assistant pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, May virtually scrapped the pitch and has thrown it just nine times since (all scattered throughout the remainder of 2019).

Trevor May said this curveball to Dominic Smith in 2019 basically led him to scrap the pitch: pic.twitter.com/braCpjRwKn

— Jacob Resnick (@Jacob_Resnick) December 3, 2020

Those interactions with Hefner, who is returning to the Mets in 2021 for his second season as pitching coach, played a major role in May’s decision to sign with New York.

“I think we grew a lot together, him as a coach and myself as a player,” May said in his introductory Zoom press conference on Thursday.

“Bouncing stuff off him and getting really good feedback of how I wanted to approach hitters and preparing to go through a lineup, preparing for when my spot’s going to come up — a lot of what I’ve learned was just having really candid conversations with him.”

May is the first major free agent addition under owner and CEO Steve Cohen, and the 31-year-old was not hesitant to praise Cohen’s outward statements of ambition.

“One of the biggest things [was] just kind of the buzz around Steve and the purchase of the team, the excitement of all the changes happening,” May said. “My immediate reaction was wanting to be a part of something like that.”

May has been one of baseball’s most effective set-up men since returning from Tommy John surgery in 2018, posting a 140 ERA+ and 24.7 percent K-BB ratio over the last three seasons.

But that curveball to Smith and the downward trend of the pitch throughout the middle part of the 2019 season led May and to go all-in on his slider.

“Should we just lean into it,” May asked Hefner. Despite not yet having a feel for the slider (“Growing pains, growing pains,” May said), the two exchanged a shrug and “now here we are two-and-a-half years later.”

May bumped up his slider usage from 14.5 percent in 2019 to 32.6 percent in 2020. The returns were promising: he held opponents to a .185 wOBA on the pitch during the shortened season, down from .223 in 2019.

All of those adjustments stemmed from improved communication as his career went along. It’s no surprise that it coincided with his first interactions with the pitching coach he’s reuniting with in New York.

“With Hef, we figured out that I had locked in the focus thing — I had worked so hard on meditation and visualization — the execution was coming along — my arm was bouncing back, my velo was going up, and I had good command — so I said ‘O.K., what’s the last piece missing?

“That’s gameplan and analyis; why am I throwing what I’m throwing when? What is my ethos there?”

After reading about how Dallas Keuchel added that third element to his game, May wondered what it would look like if he adopted the same mindset, but also happened to throw 97 mph.

“That’s kind of how we developed my pregame plan, and a lot of it has to do with my strengths of throwing up in the zone, depth on breaking balls as opposed to horizontal movement, so how do I use those weapons to do the best of my ability with tunneling to fool guys and get swings-and-misses because that’s what I’m called on to do.”