Having let go of almost all of their coaching staff following a disappointing season, the Mets have made their first move to fill a vacancy on the hitting coach side of things. Jeff Albert, who has served
as the Mets’ director of hitting development since late 2022, will head up the team’s major league hitting program, per Jeff Passan. And while the wording of the news seems to deliberately not refer to him as the team’s hitting coach, he will be in uniform, serving as part of the uniformed replacement for Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes.
Mets hitters finished fifth in baseball with a 112 wRC+ in the 2025 season, but their 766 runs scored ranked just tenth in the game. That’s still not terrible, but the lineup had a hard time putting up consistent performances and often struggled to drive in runners on base and especially in scoring position.
Speaking to Baseball America about the Mets’ approach to developing hitters throughout the minor league system in recent years, here’s a snippet of what the 44-year-old Albert had to say regarding an approach that tries to emphasize a hitter’s strengths:
“The truth is that, in year one, you’re learning the player,” Albert said. “In year two, you’re seeing some of those improvements but with less consistency. In year three, hopefully you’re seeing that player taking ownership and making adjustments on his own.
Before joining the Mets following the 2022 season, Albert served as hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals from the 2018 season through the end of the ‘22 season.
