The St. Louis Cardinals are consistently inconsistent. In a constant state of deliberation, the St. Louis front office, which was previously manned by John Mozeliak and now Chaim Bloom, has to know Oli Marmol is not their manager of the future. Rather than fire Marmol this past winter and hire a manager with the same vision as Bloom, St. Louis opted to hang onto him as they retool the roster on the fly. As a result, they've officially fallen behind the eight ball to a division rival – the Pirates fired Derek Shelton, and may have gotten a leg up in the process.
Don Kelly has been named the manager for now. Kelly is a seasoned assistant and could very well make an early impact with the Pirates and earn a new deal of his own. Either way, though, the Pirates have almost a full season to figure out what comes next. That doesn't mean they will make the right decision, but it's more than the Cardinals have.
For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop during the MLB season.
Why didn't the Cardinals fire Oli Marmol last offseason?
The Cards stuck with Marmol in part because of his player development background. With important young players on the roster like Jordan Walker and Nolan Gorman, the hope was Marmol would help those future stars take the next step. Instead, both are hitting below the Mendoza line. Marmol has admitted both players have plenty of runway, but it's not infinite.
At the end of the 2024 season, Marmol made it clear that his success as manager hinges on the development of these young Cardinals stars. If he fails, so do they.
“We need to build this group up and get them ready to go on a real run and not just compete every now and then and make the playoffs every other year,” Marmol said last September. “This is a group that we need to come together and continue to develop. It’s a young group, but it’s a good group. At the end of the day, I think there’s a bright future ahead.”
So far this season, the Cards front office has their answer – whatever Marmol is doing is not enough. He is not the manager to lead St. Louis into its next iteration of playoff-caliber baseball. However, if that's the case, why is he still around?
The Pirates dumped Shelton because they know he's not the guy. The Cards are working on borrowed time.