After baseball season came to an end, we learned that former Cardinals hitting coach Jeff Albert was going to be moving on from the organization. One name that made a whole lot of sense to replace Albert was assistant coach Turner Ward. Ward has a great reputation for the way he was able to connect with a number of players, and had been the lead hitting coach for three different major league organizations.
After Ward got the job, KMOX’s Matt Pauley got the chance to talk with him about getting the job. He told KMOX that he was excited about the opportunity and willing to do whatever it took to get the Cardinals to the next level. Plus, he talked about how the job would differ from his past experiences as assistant coach.
“I think the voice is a little louder or a little stronger — when you're the assistant, you want to support and kind of move through the organization or the the team the way, like, in this case Jeff was trying to lead,” Ward said. “And I think everybody that takes into a leadership role has their own niche about what they do or how they would do things, and that doesn't make it right or wrong, but it makes it intentional what you believe to be true to move the needle forward.”
Ward said that in the position, he wants to be a “watchman,” watching how players succeed and communicating how they can keep that up or improve when things aren’t going well.
“I have seen a trend where it's all ‘Let me just try to create something, oh, let me create power, let me create a launch angle, a certain type,’” he said. “Hitting, you have not only to be able to hit a fly ball, but you need to be ahead of the ground ball. So there is multiple adjustability that a hitter needs to have to be able to survive at the big league level, if they want to be a complete player...there's a lot of players in the league that are more well rounded.”
Ward said he knew what it was like to struggle at bat, and he’s prepared to take flack from fans when other players are struggling.
“It was a struggle, being a big league hitter, minor league hitter, whatever that is. I never said, ‘You know what, I didn't have success this year because of this hitting coach,’” Ward said. “But now I'm gonna flip that around. And the other side is because, for me now as a hitting coach, I take full responsibility. And I don't take the credit, but it is my job to help these guys. So it's kind of a part of the business not to get that credit and to take the blame.”
Hear more from Turner Ward’s conversation with KMOX’s Matt Pauley on Sports Open Line:
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