Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

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Big Amoco Sign
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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by Big Amoco Sign »

G. Keenan wrote:
October 26 22, 1:12 pm
My hunch is that Albert is leaving for greener pastures. I don't buy for a second that his feelings were hurt by Cardinals fans on twitter. If that's true he must not be considering jobs anywhere like NYC, Chicago, LA, etc. Cards fans and StL media are about as forgiving as it gets.
This is 100% correct. It’s nonsense and Mo trying to win points even though he wanted to extend him a day ago lol.

Mo is always bitter to those who burn him. Wouldn’t ever take a shrewd man like him at his word.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by Magneto2.0 »

I think Managers get a disproportionate amount of blame and praise in baseball when the team succeeds or fails, let alone hitting and pitching coaches.

Unless you have a super young team, I doubt their impact is much (coaches I'm talking about) outside of cool people to be around. Which does help.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by vinsanity »

Magneto2.0 wrote:
October 26 22, 4:18 pm
I think Managers get a disproportionate amount of blame and praise in baseball when the team succeeds or fails, let alone hitting and pitching coaches.

Unless you have a super young team, I doubt their impact is much (coaches I'm talking about) outside of cool people to be around. Which does help.
Interesting take. I'd agree their impact is often over-blown but I wonder how much they can help a guy in a slump. It seems like at that level even the tiniest mechanic changes can have noticeable impact. Same with game plans at the plate or on the mound.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by JoeMcKim »

The Cardinals moving Eversgerd to a different role in the organization makes me think they might already have someone in mind as the next pitching coach and he might be bringing in his own bullpen coach.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by go birds »

a manager's real impact in a game is usually the bullpen and managing egos. if you can do both things, then you'll prolly succeed, so long as you have good ball players.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by Fat Strat »

G. Keenan wrote:
October 26 22, 1:12 pm
My hunch is that Albert is leaving for greener pastures.
This exactly.

Outside of Cardinals' Twitter Albert is very well respected and just came off an incredible year. Huge success with the MLB team and down into the system. He's a wanted commodity. Not exactly sure what kind of position he can move up into, but maybe some team will have or develop an offensive coordination position at the FO level for him. That's close to what he was doing here but with a nice pay raise and maybe less travel. Who knows what he wants, but it's all there for him to take.

Personally, I really can't blame a guy who is very good at his job wanting to be in a place where he is appreciated for it. The front office did. But many of his players didn't under Shildt. Shildt himself obviously didn't. And while there was no indication of any problems with Marmol at all and nothing but positives from the players this year, I would guess he had already decided to push for something better after last season.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by Fat Strat »

Also, seeing some references here and others to Albert and his analytics.

Albert wasn't necessarily the analytics guy. His expertise is tech and hitting mechanics. That's hitting lab stuff -- practical technology like video, measurements, computer modeling, etc. That doesn't mean he didn't also know, understand, and use the analytics, but that stuff came from the front office itself not Albert and his offensive coaching crew.

Just clarifying.

I think it's pretty clear that Albert is a big proponent of maintaining and developing a solid hitting foundation for batters -- one that is capable of responding to individual pitching matchups but isn't centered on game planning for individual matchups. That was the disconnect a few years ago when Edman's comments came out. The game planning and reports were available for the players but it was up to them to execute it. Then this past season they adapted to get more in-game strategic coaching to go with the mechanical work and the results were better overall. Just look at the pepper-grinding thing that caught on. Grind out good at bats. That's not Nootbaar himself. That was the team's hitting philosophy in action. That was Albert's mechanical work along side video/strategic coaching with the rest of the offensive coaching staff, plus a coaching staff (all the way up to Marmol) who made judicious use of the analytical information that front office was providing.

Albert will leave that environment but the environment isn't likely to change. They just have to find the right kind of people to step in and keep it going.

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G. Keenan
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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by G. Keenan »

Thanks @Fat Strat, appreciate those insights. I will miss his bus. Hopefully they can find an effective replacement.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by heyzeus »

Fat Strat wrote:
October 27 22, 10:33 am
G. Keenan wrote:
October 26 22, 1:12 pm
My hunch is that Albert is leaving for greener pastures.
This exactly.

Outside of Cardinals' Twitter Albert is very well respected and just came off an incredible year. Huge success with the MLB team and down into the system. He's a wanted commodity. Not exactly sure what kind of position he can move up into, but maybe some team will have or develop an offensive coordination position at the FO level for him. That's close to what he was doing here but with a nice pay raise and maybe less travel. Who knows what he wants, but it's all there for him to take.

Personally, I really can't blame a guy who is very good at his job wanting to be in a place where he is appreciated for it. The front office did. But many of his players didn't under Shildt. Shildt himself obviously didn't. And while there was no indication of any problems with Marmol at all and nothing but positives from the players this year, I would guess he had already decided to push for something better after last season.
I'll speculate a bit further - it could be that he stuck around an extra year to work with Albert Pujols, because what hitting coach would not want to say they worked with Albert Pujols.

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Re: Jeff Albert and Mike Maddux not returning to the Cardinals

Post by Fat Strat »

heyzeus wrote:
October 27 22, 12:41 pm
I'll speculate a bit further - it could be that he stuck around an extra year to work with Albert Pujols, because what hitting coach would not want to say they worked with Albert Pujols.
Maybe, but I think it's more than he was still (I believe) under contract for this season. The natural time to leave is at the contract's conclusion and not during it. I might be wrong about his contract stuff and have been hesitant to say so until I checked and contract info for assistant coaches is hard to find. I just don't think they gave him a 1-yr extension last year. could definitely be wrong.

It is very clear, though, that Albert and Albert got along great and there's no reason whatsoever not to give Jeff Albert an appropriate amount of credit for what Pujols was able to do.

If anyone doesn't want to accept that and wants visual proof, here:
https://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2022/9/14/ ... ne-hunting

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