Very rarely do I ever have what humans call "an idea".
I am very very very stupid.
But the other day I wondered "How did the Cardinals' hitters do in the small sample size after Mark Budaska was let go?"
So, I looked it up. The Cardinals first game of what I'm calling the "The Ballad of Jeff and Jobel" (because Jobel Jimenez took over for Budaska as assistant hitting coach) was on August 13th. That will be the break point in the stats below.
The stats below reflect both the time before and during the The Ballad of Jeff and Jobel.
These stats do not reflect the post season and whatever in the hell kind of shit-show hitting performance we saw out of the Cardinals more often than we didn't. This is also not to justify Mr. Jeff Albert's role within the organization, one way or the other.
It's worth mentioning again that this is a small sample size. There really isn't *MUCH* to take from it other than that it's a fun exercise with stats. If you were to ask me what I hope to accomplish by publishing this, my answer would be "I don't know, man. They're just stats. I'm incapable of accomplishing things."
A REMINDER: Yadier Molina missed an entire month between 7/7 and 8/13 (It's also fun to note that Jobel's tenure started the same game that Yadi returned from the IL). Harrison Bader spent nearly a month down at Memphis, between 7/29 and 8/19. Tommy Edman didn't make his major league debut until 6/8. Which, actually, makes his sample almost two perfect halves, and a lot of fun at that! Also, Paul DeJong basically played in 193 of the teams 162 games during the season. I don't math correctly, so sorry for the inaccuracy with that one. I'm sure you get my point.
THE STATS
Yadier Molina, pre-Ballad:
Yadier Molina, during The Ballad:
Paul Goldschmidt, pre-Ballad:
Paul Goldschmidt, during The Ballad:
Kolten Wong, pre-Ballad:
Kolten Wong, during The Ballad:
Paul DeJong, pre-Ballad:
Paul DeJong, during The Ballad:
Matt Carpenter, pre-Ballad:
Matt Carpenter, during The Ballad:
Marcell Ozuna, pre-Ballad:
Marcell Ozuna, during The Ballad:
Harrison Bader, pre-Ballad:
Harrison Bader, during The Ballad:
Dexter Fowler, pre-Ballad:
Dexter Fowler, during The Ballad:
Tommy Edman, pre-Ballad:
Tommy Edman, during The Ballad:
I'm deciding to stop here because these were the players that received the primary plate appearances down the stretch. Everything else is just way too small of a sample to invest in. To give you an idea of the plate appearances that the reserves had from August 13th until the end of the season:
Matt Wieters: 23 Plate Appearances
Yairo Muñoz: 27 Plate Appearances
José Martínez: 25 Plate Appearances
Randy Arozarena: 23 Plate Appearances
Tyler O'Neill: 15 Plate Appearances
Rangel Ravelo: 23 Plate Appearances
Andrew Knizner: 12 Plate Appearances
Lane Thomas: 20 Plate Appearances (Missed all of September due to injury)
Feel free to make of these stats what you will. I just think it's fun to look at!!
The stats come from FanGraphs, and they're the only way to fly. For real, they do stats better than anyone and you should subscribe to their service if you can.
Thanks For Reading!!
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