New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns teased that major changes to the coaching staff outside of Carlos Mendoza were on the horizon. On Friday, he executed those changes.
Hitting coaches Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes, along with pitching coach Jeremy Hefner and third-base coach Mike Sarbaugh, will not return in 2026, the team announced. Bench coach John Gibbons, a former manager himself, resigned following the Mets’ historic collapse in which they went from the best team in baseball in June, to missing the postseason entirely .
Chavez joined the Mets in 2022 as Buck Showalter’s bench coach, then joined Barnes as an assistant hitting coach upon Mendoza’s arrival last year.
In 2025, the Mets boasted a top-10 offense in most categories (wRC+, average with runners in scoring position, runs per game), but it was a top-heavy attack. Outside of Pete Alonso, Juan Soto, and Francisco Lindor, there was little support, especially toward the bottom of the lineup.
Hefner went from overseeing one of the feel-good starting rotations last year with the re-emergence of Luis Severino and Sean Manaea, to drowning with a unit that did not have the horses to withstand an entire season at the major-league level.
Mets pitching became a liability after Kodai Senga’s hamstring injury on June 12. While Clay Holmes admirably transitioned from reliever to starter, David Peterson ran out of gas, Frankie Montas had a six-plus ERA before his season ended early due to injury, and Manaea could not find last year’s stuff after he started late due to an oblique injury.
First-base coach Antoan Richardson has been invited back for 2026, which was expected. The Mets were one of the most efficient base-stealing teams in the majors this season, and Richardson guided Soto into a near 40-40 man. The Mets star put up 38 stolen bases when his previous career-high was just 12.
