The Cardinals will have a new hitting coach next season. The team has decided not to offer Turner Ward a contract for 2025, Katie Woo reports for The Athletic.
Ward spent the past two seasons as the Cardinals hitting coach, overseeing an underwhelming offense both years. In that time, St. Louis ranked 21st in runs scored (1391), 16th in OPS (.723), and 17th in wRC+ (101). Those numbers aren’t terrible, but they are certainly disappointing for a team with postseason aspirations. Not all the blame for this mediocre offense should land on Turner; after all, he was the assistant hitting coach in 2022, when the Cardinals’ offense was surprisingly potent, ranking sixth in runs scored (772), fifth in OPS (.745), and seventh in wRC+ (112). However, it’s not hard to understand why the Cardinals were ready to move on.
The Cardinals are expected to keep assistant hitting coach Brandon Allen on staff, though it’s unclear if they will promote Allen or seek their new hitting coach elsewhere. Woo also notes that game-planning coach Packy Elkins and first-base coach Stubby Clapp will return in 2025. However, her latest piece does not mention assistant pitching coach Julio Rangel, another Cardinals coach whose contract was set to expire at the end of the season. Bench coach Daniel Descalso and pitching coach Dusty Blake are under contract through 2025, while third-base coach Pop Warner is under contract through 2026 (per Woo).
Prior to his time with the Cardinals, Ward worked as an assistant hitting coach for the Diamondbacks and a hitting coach for the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, and Reds. He is now free to seek his next coaching opportunity with a new organization.
Phil Brickma on line 1
Curious that a team would sign a third base coach to a multi year contract.. Do other teams do this also?
Packy, Dusty, Pop, and Stubby. To be a Cardinals’ coach, you need a “cool” first name.
Yah, because it was Wards fault the cardinals have a roster full of over the hill has been a
It is his fault that Walker struggled as well as Gorman.
Herrera, Pages, Burleson, Gorman, Saggese, Winn, Donovan, Nootbaar, Scott, Siani and Walker – all aged 22-27.
So no, not really “a roster full of over the hill has been a.”
Herrera, Burleson, Winn, Donovan, Nootbaar, Walker, and Gorman are all above league average hitters during their time with Ward.
He’s had less than 200 PAs with Scott and Saggese.
Pages is a backup catcher with a bad bat to begin with and Siani has always been a glove first guy.
Cool. So we agree, NOT a roster full of over the hill has beens.
The Cards just can’t get rid of the Clapp
They should hire Andy Haines
You should hire a therapist.
The comment section is such a weird place.
I agree especially when TheMan 3 forgets to take his Zoloft
Oh, I see, there’s some backstory going on here. In which case my previous comment still stands. Y’all need to touch grass.
They should hire Cardinals legend and MENSA level genius Pedro Guerrero.
Pop Warner has been in the organization since 1991. First as a player, then he spent 12 years a minor league manager, and since 2017 hes been on the MLB staff. He’s a lifer and he’s been an excellent coach.
He has? I’ve thought his 3rd base work was marginal at best.
At least he oftentimes points the right direction.
OK, so…I’m going to say this from an organizational standpoint and not as a fan. I worked in baseball, in particular the Milwaukee Brewers organization.
Fan perception of someone’s importance vs. their actual importance to a team are completely different things. When you see the inner workings of a clubhouse you learn that.
I can tell you from having experience from the organizational side of the fence that Pop Warner has an excellent reputation in the Cardinals organization and beyond.
4 or 5 people I worked with in the Brewers system alone told me nothing but good things about him randomly. They say he’s an excellent developer of players and a tireless worker. A lot of baseball people look up to him from what I heard.
That’s coming from me, an organizational guy. So there’s that. He’s pretty good in my book. Baseball needs more coaches like him bud.
Matt Borgschulte. Current Orioles ‘co’ hitting coach and St. Louis native.
Fire the main guy but keep the assistant? Was Allen’s approach considered better than Ward’s or are we just looking for a fall guy in place of Marmol?
Wasn’t Ward the assistant to the last one fired? They need to clean house not juts doing next man up. We need change
The plans are for Packy NOT to pack his bags.
Stubby Clapp sounds like something painful when you urinate.
Turner Ward is the scapegoat for a lousy team managed by a lousy manager and an even lousier GM POBO.
He was also a lousy hitting coach.
You expect the hitting coach to be fired when almost the entire team stops hitting.
Kinda odd that the same players who had bad offensive seasons didn’t prior to this year
Could be that Ward is the fall guy for players who just aren’t any good anymore
Is Carlos Beltran still looking for work? He could connect with several of the current players and teach clutch contact hitting. He has proved he’ll do whatever it takes to win. This might be a good time for Matt Carpenter to think about coaching instead of playing ball next year.
Skip Schumacher for hitting coach!!
You misspelt “Pujols”
Would be interesting to see him in a job like that but isn’t he with the angels?
Ummmm… Skip will be courted by quite a few teams for the Manager position. I wish the Cardinals were gonna be one of them but they aren’t real smart right now. Point being, there is less than a 0% chance that Skip becomes a hitting coach
I am not sure how a negative value for chance of occurrence actually works. Does that mean Skip gets hired by the Cardinal org in the upside down place?
Sure. Skip would love to be the assistant to the guy he probably deserved to beat for the manager position. I think it is likelier that he suddenly signs a new 10 year pact with the Marlins.
Ummmm…perhaps Skip becomes the hitting coach and then takes over for Oliver at the managerial spot. I know that’s a lot to think about for some.
You are really going to double down on that idiotic idea?
I’m sorry that logic isn’t your thing.
Need to dump OIllie and rusty, Dusty and eat their 2025 contract. There is no reason to keep either. Ollie doesn’t even act like he’s in charge of anything. He’s just Mr. get along because he’s Mo ‘s boy.
Marmol is MO’s boy because he is cheap labor for a Manager.
Who else is tired of hearing the politically correct ‘part ways’?
He was FIRED.
Dah! He wasn’t fired. “The team has decided not to offer Turner Ward a contract for 2025, Katie Woo reports for The Athletic. “. To be fired, he’d have to be under contract. “Part ways” is accurate, has nothing to do with political correctness.
Part ways implies a mutual decision. I’d hope to heck this was a unilateral choice by the cardinals which implies fired.
Dodgers fans will always remember Taylor Ward as seemingly the only person who could get through to Yasiel Puig.
AND the subject of much kissing/hugging from Puig after a successful AB. Maybe one has to run through an outfield fence to get Puig to listen.
Yeah that was some weird stuff for sure. Puig seemed to need a father figure and found one in Ward.
More good decisions. Jon Jay would be my preferred choice. They need to preach on-base percentage. I have a no idea how a supposedly analytic team despises taking walks.
I can’t wait for Goldschmidt to leave the cardinals and have a rebound year for a team within the division preferably the brewers
Maybe he can be the Brewers new closer…..
@orangedogincostume….Milwaukee will need a 1B and home stadium would assist Goldie’s power numbers
It’s not going to assist his age slowed bat though. He can’t hit any offspeed because he’s cheating to get to fastballs these days.
If they were smart, and they have shown no indication of that, they would hire Jim Edmonds as hitting coach..
When has Edmonds worked as a coach?
The only good that will come of that is the fact we don’t have to listen to his narcissistic drivel on the tv broadcasts.
Matt Holiday is a better choice but I believe he wants to be a Manager soon and this is why he took the Cardinals bench coach job this year. After a month with Marmol he quit. Lol
Holliday and Marmol are best friends. I seriously doubt Marmol is the reason he quit. The travel of the job was going to take too much time away from his family so he resigned.
Thank god!!!
Trade for Matt Holliday’s son!!
Then Hire Matt Holiday as the Cardinals Hitting Coach!!!
He’ll be more appted to accept the job if his son on was a Cardinal !!!
(Over the years —- Cardinals players have sought Holiday out in the off seasons to straighten out their swing!!!!
So hire him as the full time Hitting Coach to line out the entire Varsity Cardinals swings —- on an everyday basis rather than just in the off season!!!)
I agree Holiday should be the hitting coach but are they willing to pay for him? Probably not.I sure hope so though.