Mets Restructure Coaching Staff After Disappointing Season
The New York Mets are overhauling their Major League staff after failing to secure a postseason berth, naming a new bench coach and a new hitting coach.
The team announced on Wednesday the hiring of Kai Correa as their bench coach. Correa will be the right-hand man of manager Carlos Mendoza and arrives in New York after having been a bench coach and interim manager in San Francisco, as well as being a key piece in Cleveland’s coaching staff since 2024.
Jeff Albert, the Mets’ director of hitter development, will assume the role of the team’s primary hitting coach in 2026 and will be in uniform. The Mets indicated that his new title will be Major League hitting director.
Albert was previously the hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. Albert, 44, joined the Mets in November 2022 and has worked in development, helping the team rebuild a system that boasts its strongest group of hitting prospects in years.
He also spent six years with the Houston Astros, where he worked with Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns. The Mets plan to bring in another coach to complement Albert, according to sources, after firing hitting coaches Jeremy Barnes and Eric Chavez as part of a staff shakeup that also included the departures of pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, bench coach John Gibbons, third base coach Mike Sarbaugh and catching coach Glenn Sherlock.
After a 45-24 start, the Mets collapsed in the final 3 and a half months of the season and finished with an 83-79 record, losing a tiebreaker to the Cincinnati Reds for the final National League Wild Card spot.
The Mets’ offense finished tenth in runs scored in the Major Leagues and returns most of its core, including outfielder Juan Soto, shortstop Francisco Lindor, and outfielder Brandon Nimmo. First baseman Pete Alonso said he plans to opt out of his contract and become a free agent for the second consecutive season.
