Oct 22, 2024, 11:26 AM ET
ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Cardinals made preliminary additions to their coaching staff Tuesday, naming Brant Brown as hitting coach and bringing aboard Jon Jay to an unspecified role.
The team revealed that more coaching staff additions on manager Oliver Marmol’s staff will be made as the offseason progresses.
The Cardinals are coming off a season when they went 83-79 to miss the playoffs for a second consecutive year. They finished tied for second in the National League Central but were six games off the pace in the wild-card chase.
The club also revealed that Willie McGee will transition from a major league coach to a special assistant to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak.
According to The Athletic, first-base coach Stubby Clapp and third-base coach Ron Warner are set to return in 2025.
Brown, 53, was the bench coach for the Seattle Mariners last season after serving as the hitting coach for the Miami Marlins in 2023.
Jay, 39, played six of his 12 major league seasons with the Cardinals and was a career .283 hitter with 37 home runs and 341 RBIs in 1,201 games for seven different clubs from 2010-21. Jay was the first-base coach for the Marlins the past two seasons.
The Cardinals also continued the makeover of their front office by hiring Robert Cerfolio away from the Cleveland Guardians to serve as their assistant general manager in charge of player development and performance.
Cerfolio began his career in Cleveland in 2015 as an intern in its baseball operations and player development department.
Last month, the Cardinals announced that Chaim Bloom would replace longtime president of baseball operations John Mozeliak after the 2025 season. The expectation is that Bloom would spend the upcoming offseason and season overseeing a reset of the Cardinals’ player development program after they missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year.
Mozeliak has been general manager in St. Louis since 2007. He was elevated to president of baseball operations in 2017.
The Cardinals said that Cerfolio would hire a farm director and director of performance while announcing several in-house promotions. Matt Bayer will become senior director of baseball development, Kevin Seats the senior director of analytics, DC MacLea the manager of video technology and Brady Hall the player development video and tech coordinator.
