Mets Hire Hitting Coach Who Nearly Led Angels To Strikeout Record

The New York Mets continue to make moves with their coaching staff, as it was announced on Thursday that Johnny Washington will serve as co-hitting coach to serve alongside incumbent Troy Snitker. The move wasn’t formally announced, but it was reported by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. 

This one’s tough to fathom. Washington has been a coach for some time, but his last job didn’t go well at all. The 42-year old coach spent this season as minor league hitting coordinator for the Atlanta Braves, but before that Washington was fired from his job as lead hitting coach with the Los Angeles Angels in 2025, as he nearly led the team to the all-time record for team strikeouts. 

Washington’s approach in Anaheim was almost exclusively power-based, and there were informal reports that summarized it as something along the lines of “swing as hard as you can until you make an out.” It was obviously a home-run based approach, and the Mets are presumably hoping it can help solve their power problems this past season. 

The hitting coach is connected, though, which perhaps explains this move in part. Washington worked for new manager Andy Green with the San Diego Padrs from 2017-19, and Green’s stint in San Diego didn’t end well when he was fired after the 2025 season. 

Before that, he worked as a hitting coach in Korea and was a farmhand of the Rangers and Dodgers for five seasons from 2003-09, per DiComo. 

The Mets fired director of hitting Jeff Albert after just one season, but they elected to keep Snitker. It’s difficult to understand what the goal here given the lack of continuity and consistency, other than this being a hire of someone Green knows whom he wants on his staff. 

Mets’ lineup that finished tied for 23rd in OPS and tied for 20th in runs, according to DiComo, and Rafael Fernandez will also return to the Mets as an assistant hitting coach.

This move won’t go over well with the Mets fan base when they learn about the near-record for strikeouts, as this year’s lineup was also strikeout-prone at times. 

It was assumed when Washington was fired by the Angels that the Los Angeles job would be his final one in a prominent role, but the Mets will now head into free agency with a hitting coach whose last job ended with him being fired by one of the worst teams in baseball that had a serious strikeout problem.