Former NY Mets coach gets a new gig, fans have the same thought seeing his job title

Two heads are better than one. Two is one and one is none. Two are better than one if two act as one. Whichever phrase is your favorite, it didn’t exactly work out for the New York Mets hitting coaches in 2025. The duo of Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes were both relieved of duty after the season ending.

While ex-pitching coach Jeremy Hefner was quickly hired by the Atlanta Braves and first base coach Antoan Richardson joined him for the same role, Chavez and Barnes remained unemployed until today. Barnes is joining the Washington Nationals.

The gig? He’ll be the director of base running, game play, and defense. A somewhat unspecified role, Mets fans all had the same thought.

Former Mets hitting coach Jeremy Barnes getting hired for a job that has nothing to do with hitting tells us a lot

It’s kind of a “so what?” piece of news that required little analysis. Fans needn’t put on their best Sherlock Holmes caps to come to the same conclusion: Barnes is probably not meant to be a hitting coach.

A hitting coach or at least an assistant for the Mets in a similar role since 2022, he managed to survive four years in the role. Working alongside Chavez for all but the 2023 season when Chavez was promoted to bench coach for a year, Barnes was often criticized for the team’s poor offensive output. Needless to say, with the team coming up short in the 2022 postseason (finding one hit in their elimination game) and missing the playoffs entirely in 2023 and 2025, the last four seasons have been a huge disappointment with only 2024 standing out as a positive.

It’s not all Barnes’ fault. After all, the Mets have had an MVP runner-up (Francisco Lindor in 2024) and third-place finisher (Juan Soto in 2025) in this duration. The team has had some young players make big strides, but each has also had some lows and been sent to the minor leagues. It’s impossible to tell for sure how much of an impact, good or bad, Barne had. This is especially true when the voice of Chavez always felt stronger.

Base running, game play, and defense are far different from what the Mets asked him to do during his time with the organization. If he manages to make the Nationals more effective in those areas, it’ll be doubly questionable why he spent so long working with hitters while employed by the Mets.