Chaim Bloom has officially ascended to the throne atop the St. Louis Cardinals' front office, and he's got quite the lengthy to-do list this offseason — from trying to piece together a functional pitching staff to sifting through trade scenarios involving everyone from Nolan Arenado to Sonny Gray. It's a long road back to contention for St. Louis, and how Bloom handles his first Hot Stove season will go a long way toward determining how quickly the foundation gets built.
Before he can do any of that, though, he needs to put the finishing touches on how he wants his first coaching staff to look. Bloom already confirmed that manager Oli Marmol will be back for the 2026 season, and understandably so considering the work he did to keep an undermanned team hovering around contention for much of this season. But it seems as though there will be at least one notable change in the dugout: According to a recent report, Cardinals legend Yadier Molina is nearing an agreement on a deal that would bring him on board as a member of Marmol's staff.
“Right now we’re in contact with St. Louis to coach the Cardinals and help [Oli] Marmol," Molina told Puerto Rican newspaper El Vocero this week. "He’s still the manager, but I’d be there by his side. Nothing is concrete yet, but we’re working on it.”
Finally bringing Molina into the fold on a full-time basis is huge news, and undoubtedly thrilling news for Cardinals fans who miss his presence around the team. A potential return has been rumored for years now; Molina has been open about his desire to be a big-league manager one day, but the timing never worked out as he prioritized watching his son play high school baseball. Now the stars appear to have aligned at long last, although it's still unclear in just what capacity Molina will serve.
All of which is pretty thrilling, at least on paper. There's no question about Molina's qualifications and acumen, and if he wants to come back, it would be awfully hard for St. Louis to tell him no. But at the same time, if I were Marmol I'm not so sure I'd be all that excited about this development, one that has the potential to get awfully messy.
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Hiring Yadier Molina is great in theory — but a nightmare for Oli Marmol
Of course, the flip side of the "hire Yadi" coin has been "fire Oli," calls that only slightly abated this season as fans seemed to finally realize just how little John Mozeliak and Co. had given him to work with. But while St. Louis seems to have reached a temporary detente with Marmol, he can't hold a candle to the future Hall of Famer who spent all 19 years of his career with the Cardinals. Molina is arguably the most beloved player of his generation, someone who will come first in any popularity contest he takes part in.
Which could come back to haunt Marmol sooner rather than later. Again, we don't yet know just what Molina will be doing or what his role will be. But we can infer from his recent comments that he'll be in the dugout on a daily basis, and from there, it's all too easy to imagine just how loud the calls for his promotion will get the moment the Cardinals show any sign of struggle — or, god forbid, Marmol makes a decision that directly or indirectly costs St. Louis a game.
This fan base might have made their peace with Marmol for now, but if you polled all of them about who they'd like to be this team's manager in a perfect world, Yadi would win in a landslide. You can understand why Bloom would want his insight around, and it would be even more awkward for him to begin his coaching career some place else. Still, give it a week or so before his presence over Marmol's shoulder becomes something of a distraction, one that has the potential to get ugly.