When the St. Louis Cardinals fired assistant hitting coach Mark Budaska last August, the front office made it clear it was all about one thing: providing a more consistent voice to the hitters.
The players subsequently made it clearer. Budaska and primary hitting coach Jeff Albert disagreed in their coaching philosophies. They said it boiled down to Budaska’s more old-school views vs. Albert’s Houston Astros-trained advocacy of advanced technology and statistical analysis.
After the Cardinals mounted one of the feeblest postseason hitting performances in the game’s history while bowing out of the National League Championship Series against the Washington Nationals in four games, they doubled down on Albert’s teachings. He’d be back for the second year of his two-year deal, general manager Michael Girsch told The Athletic. The team then stocked its minor-league system with hitting instructors who either had connections to Albert or shared…
