James Kratch of NJ Advanced Media reports the New York Mets have hired St. John’s head coach Ed Blankmeyer to replace Edgardo Alfonzo as the manager of the Brooklyn Cyclones.
He will also be the Mets extended Spring Training coordinator.
Blankmeyer, 65, is an either time Big East Coach of the Year, and he has led the Red Storm to 10 NCAA Regionals. Overall, in his 24 years at St. John’s, he has amassed an 829-499-4 record.
He is the coach in St. John’s history, and he is the winningest coach in Big East history. In 2017, he was inducted into the ABCA Hall of Fame.
While at St. John’s, he has coached future Major Leaguers like Craig Hansen, Joe Panik, and Cody Stashak. When he was an assistant at Seton Hall, he had the opportunity to coach Craig Biggio, Mo Vaughn, and John Valentin.
While coaching Panik at St. John’s, he had the honor of managing the first ever game played at Citi Field. In that game, Panik was 2-for-4 with two RBI in a game Georgetown won 6-4.
In terms of his coaching, he told Inside Pitch Online, “We don’t talk. We just play hard. There are expectations in our program of how you prepare, how you work, how you compete. Competing is not talking, it’s ‘show me.’ Let your actions speak, not your words.”
While this may sound like an old school approach, Blankmeyer is well versed in analytics and incorporates them into his coaching. For example, as detailed in Torch Online, St. John’s has Rapsodo and has incorporated it into its pitching instruction.
The Mets have recently hired Brian Schneider to be their Triple-A manager and Lorenzo Bundy to be Double-A manager. Chad Kreuter will return to manger St. Lucie and we have yet to hear about Single-A Columbia.
