The Mets are making an internal hire to lead their major league hitting efforts in 2026 after seeing success with the club’s minor league bats.
Jeff Albert will be promoted to a major league role next season, a source confirmed to the Daily News on Tuesday. The Mets are expected to add another coach to work alongside Albert, who has overseen the club’s hitting development efforts since the 2023 season. Both coaches are expected to be in uniform, replacing co-hitting coaches Jeremy Barnes and Eric Chavez, who were let go earlier this month.
Albert has familiarity with some of the Mets top young hitters already, having helped develop Brett Baty, Mark Vientos and Ronny Mauricio, all of whom were big-league regulars in 2025. Outfielder Carson Benge and outfielder/infielder Jett Williams have also moved up the organizational rankings, in large part because of their hit tools.
With Albert leading the hitting development, the Double-A Binghamton Rumble Ponies posted the second-best OPS in the Eastern League last season, and the Mets’ High-A and Low-A affiliates were among the best in their respective leagues at the plate.
Having a coach for the young hitters to grow alongside could be beneficial. Albert is well-regarded for his background in exercise science, receiving a master’s degree in the subject at Louisiana Tech in 2008. From there, Albert became a minor league hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals before moving to the Houston Astros for nearly six years. Albert was a roving hitting coach, the minor league hitting coordinator and an assistant major league hitting coach.
After spending the 2018 season as a big league hitting coach, he returned to the Cardinals organization to head up their hitting program.
Albert helped the Cardinals to the NLCS. In 2022, his final season in St. Louis, the Cards posted the 10th-best batting average in baseball (.252) and the fifth-best OPS (.751), third in the NL behind the Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves.
His time in St. Louis ended after the 2022 season with Albert making the decision on his own not to return. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak was ready to offer him a multi-year contract, but told reporters at the time that Albert opted to leave his role after feeling frustrated with outside blame directed toward him.
“Jeff accomplished exactly what we were hoping he would do — he modernized our hitting program, our strategy, he made a huge contribution to our minor league side. From that standpoint, it was a success,” Mozeliak told reporters after Albert’s departure in 2022. “When you look at what was happening up at the big-league level, people were tough on him. It wasn’t an easy job. Our offense was good this year though.”
Mozeliak cited social media criticism as a reason Albert wanted to leave St. Louis. He’ll face plenty of it as a big-league coach with the Mets, whether the team is hitting or not. Chavez took a heavy amount of criticism over the last few seasons, especially in 2025. Barnes couldn’t escape it either, but the bulk of it was directed toward the former third baseman.
Chavez also recently said the Mets would be wise to stick to one hitting coach, saying two became too much information for players to sort through. Clearly, the Mets didn’t need his opinion, as they plan to hire another coach to work with the 44-year-old Albert.
A native of Rochester, Albert played college baseball at Butler University, and spent time in the independent Frontier League before beginning his coaching career.
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