Brant Brown named hitting coach; Jon Jay joins staff

ST. LOUIS -- Brant Brown, who got a strong endorsement from two-time World Series champion and former Cardinals bench coach Skip Schumaker, was named St. Louis’ hitting coach for the 2025 season on Tuesday.

Along with the Brown hiring, the club also announced that Jon Jay, a fixture with the Cardinals from 2010-15 and a member of the franchise’s World Series championship team in 2011, was named a member of manager Oliver Marmol’s coaching staff for the 2025 season.

Brown, 53, comes to the Cardinals following a stint as the offensive coordinator and bench coach for the Mariners, where he was fired in May following that team’s slow start offensively. Brant previously worked as an assistant hitting coach and hitting strategist with the Dodgers (2018-22) and as the Marlins' head hitting coach in 2023 with Schumaker. The Marlins were one of baseball’s surprise teams in '23, making the playoffs and earning Schumaker the National League Manager of the Year Award.

“I definitely think he brings a lot of energy -- there’s no doubt about it -- and that showed up in his interviews,” Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said of Brown. “The way he thinks about hitting and approaches it, it’s going to be a change from where we’ve been. Keeping with a changed model, that will be healthy for us. How he goes about [teaching hitting] from a strategic standpoint, I think it will help our younger hitting coaches and he’ll be a good mentor. But I also think he’ll be a new voice for our hitters, which will be good.”

Brown is replacing Turner Ward, who was let go after the franchise missed the playoffs for a second straight season in 2024. While going 83-79, the Cardinals' offense ranked 12th in the NL in runs (672), 12th in homers (165) and 13th in RBIs (639). The Cardinals had a minus-47 run differential on the season largely because of their offensive struggles. Primarily, their success in one-run games -- they were 29-22 -- kept them in the race for an NL Wild Card spot until mid-September.

Hitting with runners in scoring position was a particular sore spot for the Redbirds. The Cardinals ranked last in the NL in batting average (.229), slugging (.342), OPS (.645), homers (27) and RBIs (433) with runners in scoring position. They were 14th in the NL in on-base percentage (.303) with runners in scoring position.

Brown was a third-round Draft pick of the Cubs in 1992, and he played parts of five seasons with the Cubs, Pirates and Marlins from 1996-2000.

“When I say change, I think about where we once were with [former hitting coach] Jeff Albert and then the shift to Turner Ward,” Mozeliak said. “I think [Brown] is someone a little bit more in between, and hopefully that balance of messaging will benefit us.”

Jay, 39, spent the past two seasons working as the first-base coach with the Marlins. In his native Miami, Jay worked alongside Schumaker and Brown in 2023. Schumaker and his staff were informed following the end of the 2024 season that they would not be returning to the Marlins for '25.

Jay, primarily a center fielder during his 12-year MLB career with the Cardinals (2010-15), Padres ('16), Cubs ('17), Royals ('18), Diamondbacks ('18, '20), White Sox ('19) and Angels ('21), will work with the Cardinals' outfielders. He was a part of the 2011 team that won the World Series by toppling the Rangers in seven games.

Jay joins a Cards coaching staff that includes bench coach Daniel Descalso, who was hired before the 2024 season and was a teammate of Jay’s in St. Louis from 2010-14 as well as for part of '18 in Arizona.

“He’ll be responsible, obviously, for outfield defense, but there will be other aspects that he will get exposure to as well,” Mozeliak said of Jay. “One of the things that he found attractive about this job was not being stuck in a single lane. So, he’ll have exposure to a lot of elements of the game.”

The club also announced that Cardinals Hall of Famer Willie McGee, who has served as a coach on the team since 2018, will transition to special assistant to Mozeliak, and Robert Cerfolio was added to the front office as an assistant general manager of player development and performance.

“Really, this was done just to allow him more control of his own time,” Mozeliak said of McGee, who will work with young players in the organization while visiting Minor League sites throughout the season. “Willie’s a special person and obviously his connection to the Cardinals is legendary and something that we all respect. The travel and the demands of the day-to-day job are tough, and this will give him a lot more flexibility going forward.”