The Mets are set to name former Cardinals hitting coach Jeff Albert as their new director of hitting, SNY’s Andy Martino reports. He’ll presumably work in close tandem with hitting coach Eric Chavez and assistant hitting coach Jeremy Barnes. The team hasn’t made a formal announcement and given an exact description of the newly created position, but the team’s recent hire of Eric Jagers to serve as director of pitching likely sheds some light on Albert’s role. Jagers is expected to oversee the Mets’ minor league pitchers while also working closely with pitching coach Jeremy Hefner.
The 41-year-old Albert joins the Mets on the heels of a four-year stretch as the Cardinals’ hitting coach. He left the St. Louis organization after the season of his own volition. Cards president of baseball ops John Mozeliak said at his season-ending press conference that he’d been planning to offer Albert a contract, and Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch tweets that the plan had been to offer Albert a multi-year extension. Albert instead chose to pursue new opportunities, and the Cardinals subsequently promoted assistant hitting coach Turner Ward to Albert’s vacated position of hitting coach.
While Albert drew his share of criticism from Cardinals fans during some offensive struggles, the Cardinals’ composite offensive output in 2022 was quite strong. The team ranked ninth in the Majors in home runs (197), fifth in runs scored (772), tenth in batting average (.252), fourth in on-base percentage (.325) and seventh in slugging percentage (.420).
Obviously, not all of that can be simply attributed to Albert’s influence alone. But Albert, who has also spent time as the Astros’ hitting coach and minor league hitting coordinator, remains a highly respected coach and hitting instructor — and the new appointment to a prominent role within the Mets organization does nothing to change that perception.
Most of St. Louis will call this a bad move for the Mets.
Yeah probably. As a life long Cardinals fan I often cringe at some of the stuff my fellow fans say online. It just comes from a place of ignorance and not understanding.
Then again I think most baseball fans think they know more than they do, I just notice it more from Cardinals fans because I hold them in higher regard. We need to do better as a unit.
Now media in St. Louis has no excuses for their horrendous takes. These guys are supposed to be professionals but their lack of knowledge is glaring.
Jeff Albert and his “philosophy” is the worst thing that happened to StL. Put your creds out if you think you’re so smart. Good riddance!
You just proved Didlz point. Hilarious.
You hit the nail on the head. However, he needs to be more thick skinned and realize that only the team and owners’ opinions on how he does his job matter. Cards fans are generally knowledgable and extremely loyal but like the state animal, the mule, they refuse to budge on certain things obvious to many. Case in point: A large contingent of the fan base has hated Mozeliak and constantly called for his ouster due to him wearing a bow tie. I don’t care if my team’s GM or DOPO wears a friggin’ dress if he can get me Arenado w/Colorado paying a chunk of salary for Gomber, one decent 3rd base prospect, and a couple scrubs.
Btw, my response is to Didlz, not real baseball
Perk, I’m a Tiger fan (thanks for the sympathy) and have long admired your club’s ability to put a good team together year in and year out. Your fellow fans have no reason to micro-manage. But Mozeliak in a dress is a sight I don’t want to imagine!
Mr Perkins, mozeliak does wear dresses, dejong has a picture….
the st. louis fans’ biggest beef with Jeff Albert was the fact that they score 1 run or less in 6 of their last 10 playoff games, including 3 shutouts.
Wonder how long till the NY social media scene gets to him? If that’s what ran him out of STL oh boy, just wait till the Mets start taking fastballs right down the middle
Doesn’t make them any less wrong
That’s like 3 hitting coaches.
Lol I hear that one lady from Wonka saying “that’s like 180%”
Dude left St. Louis because he couldn’t handle taking the blame from fans for the poor offensive output, but thinks he can handle New York fans and media??? Good luck man.
Major league hitting coaches do next to nothing and have such little impact on anything. With that said, the Cardinals offense was really good.
Especially in the playoffs the last two years.
Wasn’t his name John Harvard?
The offense was inconsistent at best. The launch angle/exit velocity obsession has ruined the game. It’s naturally prone to extreme droughts. Disgusting to watch. Not to mention prone to shifts. If hitting was still taught, hitters wouldn’t need the commissioner to rescue them with a rule change. Of course all the “progressive” fans will whine and call foul but they aren’t near as bright as they think they are. Keep ruining the game!
This is such a bad, bad take. Jeff Albert completely redesigned the approach to hitting in st. Louis to better incorporate analytics and better training technologies. The idea that this took “next to nothing” in terms of work is just something else.
Day-to-day, the hitting coaches are responsible for combing through hours of footage, come up with game plans for each pitcher they will face, identifying any changes to players swings, interfacing with analytical departments to translate analytics into results that players understand, designing training programs, etc. “Do next to nothing” is just ignorance, teams would not employ these coaches if this were even remotely true.
on paper they do a lot don’t they
Dude left St. Louis because he couldn’t handle taking the blame from The fans for the poor offensive output, but thinks he can handle New York fans and media??? Good luck man.
“Director of Hitting,” “Director of Pitching?” These sound like corporate titles for guys wearing suits and ties rather than coaches on the field building rapport with the players and helping them do better on the mental as well as the physical aspects of the game.
Fake titles for fake positions. Major league hitting coaches are really phantom jobs where they don’t really do anything but at least he will he able to help the minor leaguers who could actually use the help.
Were making jobs for jobs over here
We need more job titles like this. Hitting Assistant. Vice President of Hitting
Assistant To The President Of Hitting Operations
Juan Pierre coming aboard as “Czar of Bunting Kinetics” very soon…
Sounds like a bank. Everyone gets a fancy title.
Plus larger cubicles as you get a better title
Please create a title called King of Bats next, thanks.
How about “Viceroy of the Cape of Good Hitting Hope”?
Is that above or below the Duke of Hitting?
Mets still looking for a personal assistant for the VP of pitch framing, saw it on ZipRecruiter
Cards were top 5 in OPS and Runs this season, so something went right. Players like Edman, Nootbar etc. who were not regarded as top prospects have turned into everyday players. At the end of the day, its what hitting coaches do for the players that bat 5-9 not the ones like Arenado and Goldschmidt.
Director of hitting? Lol
Well, what has been the Cardinals hitting philosophy? That’ll be the Mets new organizational approach
It’s basically hitting the ball in the air and pulling the ball
Something missing in this discussion is that Albert was hired by the Cardinals to install an analytics-based approach throughout the system. It worked well in the minors, but very inconsistently on the ML team. This suggests to me that Albert is not a great hands-on coach. “Director of Hitting” seems just right for Albert.
I like your take bassrun
Well if Mets fans end up disliking him as much as we did in St. Louis, all you have to do is be critical of him on social media.
The Brewers have three hitting coaches. They spread the poor performance around.
director of hitting?
is this even a thing?
how about batting coach?
“Swing at the strikes, don’t swing at the balls” -camden453, director of hitting
Camden, you definitely talk the talk hahaha Solid advice to any aspiring slugger..
The Cardinals offense has been anemic and inconsistent. This was on full display during the playoffs. For the majority of the season the team had two hitters on the entire roster with an OPS over .700. That’s not an approach to put much stock into. Then this softy felt the fans were mean to him so he ran away to the gentle confines of New York.
So that’s how they got to top 5 in OPS, runs, OBP, you name it? They had an excellent offense this year. They also had a top 10 offensive minor league system.
Dear Jeff Albert, it will never be Turner Ward’s fault. Bye.
Leaves StL because he thought he took too much of the blame and then jumps onboard with a NY team? That makes a lot of sense . I say bring back Mike Shildt since MO’s boy is gone.