ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Second-year hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals Jeff Albert will reportedly be back with the team in 2021. It's news that brought out some strong negative reactions from fans as St. Louis hasn't been well-known for scoring runs in Albert's first two seasons.
Here's what Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak had to say on KMOX on Sept. 27 when asked about Albert's performance:
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"Jeff Albert was brought in here not to be a light switch. It wasn't like he was going to change our hitting around in like a day and say, 'We've done it'," Mozeliak says. "We feel from a systematic process standpoint he's making the type of inroads that we wanted to see."
It was first reported by St. Louis Post-Dispatch writer Derrick Goold that Albert and the entire Cardinals 2020 coaching staff would be returning next season.
Mozeliak noted that the Cardinals expect Albert to make change not just at the major league level, but then entire organization's hitting philosophy. He's also in charge of instruction at the minor-league level – which we didn't get to see in 2020.
"Part of Jeff's responsibility was to re-build our staff at the minor league level, help create a process and a strategy throughout," Mozeliak says. "So everybody needs to just step back, we're not going to make a knee-jerk decision on this. We really believe in the direction we are heading.
"I'm sure people would like to see better results as all of us would. Ultimately, this is a long-view play and that's what we'd like to see happen."
You can hear that full interview with Mozeliak on KMOX, here:
You can easily find St. Louis' problematic offensive stats for yourself from Albert's first two seasons. But you'll also see back-to-back playoff appearances in those seasons.
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