The Braves announced that they have hired Jeremy Hefner as pitching coach and Antoan Richardson as first base coach. Henfer replaces Rick Kranitz while Richardson replaces Tom Goodwin. Mark Bowman of MLB.com reports that third base coach Fredi Gonzalez won’t be returning to Atlanta next year either.
Atlanta is plucking a couple of coaches from a division rival. Over a month ago, it was reported that the Mets would be making major coaching changes. That included moving on from Hefner, their longtime pitching coach. More recently, it was reported that Richardson would be moving on from the Mets as well. Both of them now retake their previous jobs but in Atlanta instead of Queens.
Hefner, now 39, had a brief major league career. He pitched for the Mets in 2012 and 2013, making 50 appearances, before multiple Tommy John surgeries intervened. Once his playing days were over, he was hired by the Twins as an advance scout. He worked his way up to an assistant pitching coach role. The Mets hired him as their pitching coach prior to the 2020 season.
It’s always tough to separate the contributions of one coach from several individual players, but the team performed decently under Hefner’s watch. From 2020 to 2025, the Mets had a collective 4.03 earned run average, good enough for 11th in the majors. He’ll now head to Atlanta to join a club looking for a bounceback after an extremely disappointing 2025 campaign.
Bringing one pitching coach aboard means another is on his way out. Kranitz, 67, has spent most of the past two decades as a pitching coach in the big leagues. He first got that job with the Marlins in 2006 and has since gone to the Orioles, Brewers and Phillies.
Atlanta hired him ahead of the 2019 season. They had just finished a 90-72 campaign in 2018 but parted ways with pitching coach Chuck Hernandez afterwards. The club has had a lot of success under Kranitz but has been struggling more recently. Atlanta won the National League East in Kranitz’s first five seasons, a run which included a World Series win in 2021. However, they slid to a Wild Card spot in 2024 and then this past season was a nightmare. Atlanta finished 2025 in fourth place in the East with a 76-86 record. Evidently, it was time for a change.
Richardson, 42, has had various coaching roles with the Giants and Mets over the years. He has settled in more recently as a first base coach, having had that job with the Giants from 2020 to 2023 and with the Mets for the past two years.
Goodwin, 57, has coached for various clubs over the years. He spent the past two seasons as first base coach in Atlanta but will be looking for a new gig for 2026. Gonzalez, 61, has also bounced around to various teams. A lot of those bounces have been in Atlanta. He was on the coaching staff from 2003 to 2006 and was the manager from 2011 to 2016. He returned to the club in June of this year, a rare midseason replacement, taking the job from Matt Tuiasosopo.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images
Well bye bye Fredi.
At least one good thing came out of this managerial change.
Could be awkward for a new manager to have on his staff an old Braves manager. “That’s now I woulda dun it.” Snit was grounded for a few years when they brought Fredi back in. Still unsure why he was brought back, tbh.
Yep, I agree. And even though they were obviously in the dugout some together finishing up the season, it maybe that the two of them weren’t particularly close friends or saw eye to eye.
Gonzalez had a lot of good things to say about Weiss in a radio interview today.
Wow kinda surprising they’re moving on from Kranitz. I’m indifferent either way just surprised….bring back Wash plz 🙏
Wash might be hoping to interview for one of the other managerial openings, but yeah Wash coming back to the Braves would be cool to see.
I agree- I think Kranitz has done well.
I liked Kranitz back during his Philly days, though I’d probably argue Hefner is one of the few options out there that are better.
I hope Washington catches on somewhere at least.
If his health allows it.
I liked Kranitz. Not his fault his entire starting rotation went to the IL.
Mets down bad
Lol Mets losing their one good coach ( the best 1B coach I have ever seen ) to the Braves while retaining the worst Manager I have ever seen who has no in game feel for managing talent. Outside of stealing bases the Mets were the most fundamentally unsound team in MLB.
The Mets as a team were 15th in DRS and 19th in FRV. They were among the best in DP% and assists meaning once the ball was fielded they were doing things the fundamentally sound way. They were no where near the worst defensive team.
On offense they were in the top 3rd, meaning among the best, in all the categories that represent fundamentals including BB%, SO%, BRS%, productive outs %, and wRC+.
Cannot figure out what the heck you are talking about.
Do not bother with Robrock. He’s a Mets-hating troll who posts thoughtless garbage on almost literally every single Mets article. I’m not sure what it is about the Mets that draws out the most pathetic people who have nothing better to do than troll baseball articles for literally years on end. It’s very sad in a way. The Mets could trade Mark Vientos straight up for Shohei Ohtani and Robrock would be poised, drooling from his open mouth, over his keyboard ready to slam the move as soon as the MLBTR article announcing it is posted. Tap the Mute button for Robrock.
I actually watch all of their games not the stats you cite.
“I actually watch all of their games not the stats you cite”
Translation:
“I prefer my reality to yours”
@robrock Hey Rob! I also couldn’t help noticing the many times Mendoza didn’t even know the speeds of his various pinch-running options, preferring Marte (26.6 feet per second sprint speed) over Tyrone Taylor (29.3 fps), and on another occasion preferring Mauricio (25.8 fps) over Zack Short (27.4 fps), where in the first case Marte, who had also just come off the IL for a knee injury, was thrown out by 18″ on a play where Taylor would have scored standing up, and in the second case Short ended up running behind Mauricio after Mauricio failed to score from 1B on a double past Castellanos.
In that case Mauricio failed to get any kind of jump even though Castellanos was nowhere near the ball and had no chance of catching it on the fly. Even so, Mauricio just waited near 1B, not even taking a secondary lead, until the ball bounded into the RF corner.
This put the Mets in a hole in two games they had good chances to win, and those are just two of a half-dozen examples of Mendoza’s blunders with baserunning alone.
Mendoza’s far worse wrt having an idea when a pitcher, particular a starter, is beginning to lose it, typically waiting until the SP has given up at least two hits and at least one run before recognizing what is obvious to everyone and finally pulling the guy.
—How is not knowing how fast your bench guys are not a firing offense? It’s not as if Mendoza’s a genius in other spots—in fact it’s typical of his general ineptitude. On top of that, he lost the team no later than late July. What’s the counterargument, that he was able to get the 2025 Mets to keep playing hard for him? They were the most lifeless bunch I’ve ever seen outside of the White Sox.
JackStrawb,
Long time my friend. I remember the mistakes Mendoza made that cost the Mets many losses. The base running, the pinch runners and pinch hitters the use of the bullpen, etc. using Marte instead of Taylor, pinch hitting Acuna instead of having him as a pinch runner. Mendoza is liked by the FO because he reads from a script and can’t adjust to the Game in real time.
Hilarious that the Mets retain him and let go of their 1B Coach who taught Soto to steal bases successfully to lead the League in SBs.
JackStrawb,
The Mets are reportedly the biggest financial losers in MLB, with estimated losses of around $350 million for the 2025 season.
In the offseason, the team fired hitting coaches Eric Chavez and Jeremy Barnes, pitching coach Jeremy Hefner, and bench coach John Gibbons while retaining Mendoza ( head scratcher ).
The future of their free agent star players Pete Alonso and Edwin Diaz are unknown as the Mets are currently in the luxury tax.
wait till you get a load of what Won’t Weiss brings to the table.
I hope they move Kranitz to director of pitching development
Per Mark Bowman: Rick Kranitz, Tom Goodwin, and Frèdi Gonzalez have been informed they won’t be returning to the braves coaching staff.
To be fair….being on the team’s coaching staff and the organization’s development team are different arenas
Nice Mets troll move by the Braves.
Mets trolls will love this.
Man that hurts the Mets a lot. Losing them was bad enough but to see em go to ATL is a killer
Is it?
One of them was fired and the other, as good as he was, is just a 1st base coach
I’m sure the Mets will now hire two 1B coaches just to be sure they aren’t being shown up.
Yeah…well Wash was “just” the third base coach, but most fans would tell you his impact is definitely missed. Not saying they’re correct or he’s Wash, but it isn’t just holding on to elbow guards until the bat boy trots out
Richardson was great at helping the Mets steal bases this year (Juan Soto led the NL!), so expect the Braves to do very well in that regard.
Mets set the record for SB rate in 2023 at 88.7% w 118 total then in 2024 83.6%.
Please tell me how how this is all bc of Antoan Richardson tireless efforts?
Eh, I could be wrong…
If Mets really really wanted Richardson to stay they would’ve paid him to stay . Hefner is no loss . Braves shouldn’t be importing Mets pitching culture when they have a great history of pitching culture
Richardson and the Mets “couldn’t come to terms”. No one has reported whether those terms were money or something else, while Andy Martino reported that the Mets made a strong attempt to retain him.
Richardson might have been seeking a promotion. And with multiple teams hiring new managers, it seemed like such a promotion could be available. He’d coached Buster Posey, now POBO, in SF. And his fellow coach there was named the manager in Bal just before Richardson left the Mets.
His contract expired, he was a free agent, and he chose to test the market. What he wanted, and whether or not the Mets should have given it to him is pure speculation.
Puma has a quote from Richardson saying it was salary
I stand corrected. over the past hour or two, multiple outlets are reporting that money was the issue. Martino’s level of credibility has just gone from low to zero in my eyes after he later embellished his earlier statements and reported that there was “nothing the Mets could have done to retain Richardson”.
Of course it was salary. NYC is one of the most expensive places to live in the entire nation. And with the new mayor coming in, vowing to tax the wealthy to get his programs funded, Richardson was probably seeking a sizable raise to come out even.
Knee jerk reaction: Mets are going to regret firing Hefner, especially if he’s in ATL.
The alternative was Stearns admitting that his absurd ineptitude in assembling the Mets staff, failing to supplement them with useful depth, then waiting until AUGUST 16th to bring up Nolan McLean from AAA, where he had been pitching like an ace for most of the year—was the proximate cause of the Mets missing the postseason.
Incredibly, Stearns was hoping to squeeze a tweener pick out of the situation if he kept McLean’s innings under 50 in MLB in 2025 and McLean then finishes 1st or 2nd in the 2026 ROY voting.
Instead, Stearns kept giving innings in June, July, and August to Manaea, a ruined Senga, Frankie F. Montas, Paul F. Blackburn… whose combined ERA was over 6.00. That’s what Stearns preferred to Nolan McLean, who was not outpitched by Skenes or Skubal in his 49 MLB innings in 2025. Hell, even Brian Cashman knew to bring up Cam Schlittler on July 9th when the Yankees rotation was in trouble.
Does anyone think Stearns is going to admit to his own absurd malfeasance when there are coaches to be fired?
Hopefully Stearns will be gone after another bad season in 2026
PoLarbear
It’s so weird for you to want that to happen. What’s more important to you, the mets winning or Stearns being fired?
Schmets, i have been a fan since 84 and im used to losing so if thats what it takes to get rid of the dumpster diver, so be it!! Mets have too many needs this offseason to fill and Stearns is not the guy to lead this team. He did nothing last off season and still thought the Mets were a contender….i could be wrong but everybody is entitled to their opinion
Stearns won’t win he’s an idiot
The only regret is they didn’t fire him sooner. Mets will never regret that firing
Prior to all the changes, was hoping the Braves might ring Mike Maddux’ number, but he moved on ahead of them, plus I think he prefers to work out west.
Hope Braves fans are excited to watch guys nibble around the edges and get to 95 pitches in the 4th!
We’ve been seeing that already.
Braves hiring Richardson means he won’t be part of Vitello’s coaching staff. Was hoping for a Giants reunion with Richardson
I hope they bring back Wash. I think Ozzie does too.
Buster was asleep at the wheel. He should have grabbed Richardson.
Having those 2 as coaches didn’t work out well for the Mets. So Atlanta wanted them?
Hefner was considered a bit of a pitching guru as recently as a year or so ago. Stearns didn’t give him a lot to work with this season. The Braves staff has a ton of upside, especially if the guys who were hurt last year return to health.
As for Kranitz, he was solid throughout but had to miss a bunch of time last year to take care of his health. Sometimes it’s best to move on.
Never read anything calling Hefner a pitching guru. I did read things saying it was surprising he was retained when Stearns took over in Queens.
He got Canning to not look like a turd, he must be ok.
The Mets issues run far deeper than those coaches .. Tgeycwere probably glad to get out of there !
Hefner or Henfer? I can’t keep up with all the coaches without a scorecard or Spellcheck. Thanks.
It says Henfer 1 time and Hefner 9 times. Also: there’s http://www.gooogle.com or http://www.yahoo.com or http://www.askjeeves.com available to help you answer simple and obvious questions.
As a Mets fan, good riddance, Hefner was a disaster. Too bad about Richardson. Braves fans will hate Hefner pretty fast once you see how bad he is every day.