Cardinals hire Brown and Jay as coaches, lure Cerfolio away from Guardians for front-office role

ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Cardinals continued their offseason makeover on Tuesday, hiring Brant Brown and former outfielder Jon Jay as coaches and luring Robert Cerfolio away from the Guardians to be their assistant general manager for player development and performance.

Brown, who was the Mariners' bench coach and offensive coordinator last season, will take over as the St. Louis hitting coach. He spent the 2023 season in that role with the Marlins and has spent time with the Dodgers and Rangers organizations.

Jay played 12 seasons in the big leagues, including a stint from 2010-15 with the Cardinals that included a World Series title in 2011. He spent the past two seasons as the first base and hitting coach with the Marlins.

Willie McGee, who has been a Cardinals coach since 2018, will transition into a role as special assistant to John Mozeliak, the president of baseball operations. The team said other changes to the coaching staff will be announced soon.

Last month, the Cardinals announced that Chaim Bloom would replace Mozeliak after the 2025 season as the head of their baseball operations. 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.