ARLINGTON, TEXAS — The Cardinals’ firm commitment to modernizing their offensive approach under the guidance of Jeff Albert — which an executive once described as “all in†— will continue into 2021.
Hitting coach Albert, pitching Mike Maddux and bench coach Oliver Marmol will return along with the rest of manager Mike Shildt’s coaching staff, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak confirmed Monday. A formal announcement is expected after the World Series.
The decision on the staff is the first of several greeting the Cardinals once the offseason officially begins this week. Within 24 hours of the end of the World Series, the Cardinals must make a decision on the $12.5-million team option for second baseman Kolten Wong.
Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright headline a group of players that will become free agents in the coming week, and both veterans have expressed an interest in returning.
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Molina, 38, is seeking a two-year contract that will take him to the end of his career. The Cardinals have had continuing discussions with their catcher’s representative in recent weeks. Molina never has been a free agent, and he said he’s open to hear what other teams think of him even while prioritizing a return to the Cardinals.
Since their elimination in the wild-card round of the postseason, the Cardinals have held the annual audit of their season and began preparation for winter shopping.
This winter is clouded with unknowns because the Cardinals, like many teams, do not have a feel for their payroll. With a pandemic still burning hot spots in the country, it’s not clear if teams will be able to sell tickets in 2021, or how many tickets can be sold, or how many games the season will have. The World Series is being played in a 40,000 seat ballpark with around 11,500 fans present. The Cardinals link much of their payroll to ticket revenue, and the reduction of one will shape the other.
The Cardinals have downsized their baseball operations staff this winter with layoffs and contracts not being renewed.
Willie McGee recently told Post-Dispatch baseball writer Rick Hummel that he intended to return for 2021, the final year of his current contract, after opting out of the 2020 for health concerns.
The return of the hitting staff suggests that the Cardinals once again are banking on the improvement of current hitters, as they did entering 2020, or plotting changes in personnel.
The Cardinals did evaluate Shildt’s coaching staff and discussed the benefit of introducing at least a new voice to the batting cage. Albert and assistant Jobel Jimenez will remain in the lead, though the team could flank them with other resources for hitters. The Cardinals have invested in new technology to give Albert the infrastructure for implementation, and they hired a colleague, Russ Steinhorn, to be an offensive coordinator in the minors. The Cardinals have described a longterm goal, a “learning curve†as Shildt put it, but one with short-term expectations.
A chief concern for the Cardinals is how they unleash hitters at the major-league level, especially after seeing Marcell Ozuna and Randy Arozarena excel in 2020 after being with the Cardinals in 2019.
For the second consecutive year, the Cardinals had a superb pitching staff and were one of the finest run-prevention teams in baseball. Each year they’ve been slowed by a subpar offense. Only two teams scored fewer runs than the Cardinals this season, though the 28 other teams played 60 games to their 58. The NL champ Dodgers scored 349 runs to the Cardinals 240 while playing two more games. In half of their games, the Cardinals scored three or fewer runs, and they went 4-25 in those games.
The Cardinals have had the least productive outfield offensively in the majors, declining power, and lowest slugging percentage of any playoff team in each of the past two Octobers. Their 2019 run ended with a historically meek offensive performance in the NLCS to the eventual champs, the Nationals. Their 2020 postseason had a more sudden though no less ignominious end when nine Padres relievers shut out the Cardinals in a decisive Game 3 of a first-round series.
Maddux remains one of the highest paid pitching coaches in the majors. Also expected to return as far as uniformed coaches are first-base coach Stubby Clapp, third-base coach Ron “Pop†Warner, and bullpen coach Bryan Eversgerd.
‘I like the DH’
Had this World Series played out at the home ballparks with the home rules of the two clubs, Tuesday’s Game 6 would be a return to National League rules and a farewell for the season to the designated hitter. Instead, the 2020 season has been both a vision and a harbinger of what many in the industry believe to be the arrival of the designated hitter in the National League.
And, LA manage Dave Roberts is cool with that.
One of the rules implemented for the shortened 2020 season was the universal DH — a chip both the union and the owners planned to be in play for the new Collective Bargaining Agreement for 2022. This season became a dress rehearsal for the DH in the NL, and Roberts suggested Monday that it was an essential part of teams navigating a condensed schedule, like the one his team had in the playoffs or the Cardinals had coming out of quarantine. When playing five playoff games in five days or seven in seven, Roberts was able to use a designated hitter for his catcher or alleviate the workload of an outfielder with the DH.
“I’ve been familiar with it as far as interleague (and) it is very normal now, and I always was on the other side of that, being a traditional National League, the pitcher hits,†Roberts said. “I’ve warmed up to it. I understand it’s probably not going to be in play for next year, but going forward, 2022 and on. I’ve flipped. I like the DH.â€