Hitting coaches Jeremy Barnes and Eric Chavez and pitching coach Jeremy Hefner are among those who will not return, the team announced. The Mets are also parting ways with bench coach John Gibbons and third-base coach Mike Sarbaugh, while catching instructor Glenn Sherlock is retiring.
Manager Carlos Mendoza, whom the Mets will bring back for the third and final guaranteed year of his contract in 2026, will enter that campaign with a markedly different cast around him.
“It’s normal after any season to do a coaching staff evaluation,” president of baseball operations David Stearns said earlier this week. “When you come off of a disappointing season like this, it’s certainly going to be a little more intense.”
Barnes, 38, had been part of the Mets’ hitting program since 2022, after serving one year in a player development role. He became the club’s hitting coach the following season and shared that job with Chavez the past two years. Before that, Chavez, 47, had served as the Mets’ bench coach for one season under Buck Showalter.
Under Barnes and Chavez, the Mets finished fifth in the Majors in wRC+ (112), eighth in batting average with runners in scoring position (.260) and tied for ninth in runs per game (4.73).
Assistant pitching coach Desi Druschel and bullpen coach José Rosado have been given permission to speak to other teams, pending the Mets’ selection of a new head pitching coach. It’s unclear at this point if either will return.
Gibbons, 63, a former Mets player who later spent two stints managing the Blue Jays, had served as bench coach the past two seasons. His hire before the 2024 campaign was significant because it gave Mendoza, who at the time had no Major League managerial experience, a veteran hand in the dugout.
Sarbaugh, 57, spent two years as third-base coach following an 18-year run in the Guardians organization.
Sherlock, 65, had been the Mets’ catching coach for the past four seasons, working closely with Francisco Alvarez and other Mets backstops. He previously served as a base coach for the Mets from 2017-19.
Among those staffers whom the Mets did invite to return are first-base coach Antoan Richardson, who played a significant role in engineering Juan Soto’s breakout on the basepaths, strategy coach Danny Barnes, who performs various administrative tasks, and coaching assistant Rafael Fernandez, who worked closely with Mets offensive players as a sort of third hitting coach.
