Former Brewers player, 1-time Cy Young contender added to NY Mets minor league staff

Coming off of a successful 77-53 season in the Florida State League, the St. Lucie Mets are undergoing one of the frequent challenges of any minor league club: coaching stability. The minor leagues aren’t a place where you root for too many names longer than a year. The A-Ball affiliate of the New York Mets have made some coaching changes, notably bringing in, of all things, a former Milwaukee Brewers player.

They’ve announced their 2026 coaching staff and the pitching coach is a name baseball fans will remember, Jimmy Nelson.

He comes with one of the stronger playing resumes that you’ll find at such a low level. In 2017, he finished 9th in the NL Cy Young vote as a member of the Brewers. A 12-6 record and 3.49 ERA for the David Stearns-led Brewers distantly reunites the pair within the Mets organization.

Jimmy Nelson has the right kind of resume you want to see from a minor league coach

It seems that well-established big leaguers can sometimes jump over grinding it out in the minor leagues. The Brewers already hired Daniel Vogelbach to be one of their hitting coaches this year. Nelson, who was a pitching coach for the Frederick Keys of the MLB Draft League last year, joins an affiliated ball club for the first time in his post-playing days. He last pitched in 2023 in the minor leagues for the Los Angeles Dodgers. His final season in the majors was in 2021 when he had a 1.86 ERA in 29 innings for them, mostly in relief.

Nelson’s big league career had one obvious problem: injuries. After a top 10 Cy Young finish in 2017, he missed all of 2018 and returned in 2019 only to struggle in his 22 innings, pitching to a 6.95 ERA. He again missed all of 2020 (we all would have liked to) and came back in 2021. Multiple different injuries in those final years kept him from ever living up to the billing.

Those who can’t do, teach. For love of the game and maybe the weather, he’s taking his talents to St. Lucie. 

Oddly, last year’s St. Lucie pitching staff included multiple pitching prospects who’ve been traded away. So as much as his goal will be to develop pitchers the Mets can use in the future, he’s also increasing trade value. St. Lucie is often a first-stop for many drafted players. In an organization that seems to prioritize the development of arms, he’ll become one of the more important members of the coaching staff. Who knows? If all goes well, he can follow in Dan McKinney’s footsteps and jump through the system.