3 radical solutions to the St. Louis Cardinals brutal slump

Cardinals solution: Fire Oli Marmol

Oli Marmol is not on the hot seat right now. In fact, it’s not even close.

St. Louis would have to become an abject disaster for Marmol to lose his job during the season. However, failing to make the postseason could very well lead down the same path, so why wait?

Marmol’s early-season tif with Tyler O’Neill cost him some players in the clubhouse, including the outfielder he was hoping to make the point to. The young manager opted to go public with his issues involving O’Neill’s lack of hustle on a play in which he was thrown out against the Atlanta Braves. O’Neill, who suffered multiple leg injuries just a year prior, didn’t want to push himself in early April. Neither side was necessarily right in their opinion, but Marmol was wrong in how he went about it.

Fast forward to Monday night, and St. Louis has lost six of their last ten games, and fans are fed up. Rather than taking blame for his team’s performance, or hoping to amp up his players with a challenge of his own, Marmol simply told Cards faithful to stay patient.

“You got a pretty mentally tough team, they’re not going to give in. Other people would. There’s no way anybody in that clubhouse, staff, player included is going to give in to what’s going on right now,” Marmol said.

Yeah, that’s not going to cut it.

St. Louis is a good team. Eventually, they will turn things around, and Marmol should play a part in that. But his transgressions shouldn’t go unnoticed.