The Mets are continuing to remake their organizational infrastructure, hiring Jeff Albert as director of hitting on Monday, according to league sources.
The addition comes shortly after the Mets named Eric Jagers director of pitching.
Albert, 41, was the minor league hitting coordinator for the Houston Astros for four years, followed by a stint in 2018 as the major league assistant hitting coach. He bookended his time in the Astros organization with two stints with the St. Louis Cardinals, first as a minor league hitting coach and in that role in the big leagues from 2019 to 2022.
Albert left the Cardinals at the end of this season, a move that the Cardinals tried to prevent.
“Jeff accomplished exactly what we were hoping he would do,” Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said at a news conference last month. “He modernized our hitting program, our strategy. He made a huge contribution to our minor-league side. From that point of view, it was a success.
“When you look at what was happening at the big-league level, people were tough on him. It wasn’t an easy job. Our offense was good this year, though.
“I was hopeful he would come back, but … there was a lot of frustration. (Albert) took a lot of the blame when things weren’t going well. I was prepared to offer him a contract, but before I even got that out of my mouth, he had already told me he wasn’t coming back. If you read social media, a lot of people put a lot of blame on him.”
Albert comes to the Mets with a pre-existing relationship with assistant hitting coach Jeremy Barneswho he knows from the Astros organization.