Oli Marmol once again proves he's afraid to make the hard decisions with Cardinals

Opening Day is now just days away, and that means teams around MLB are getting down to brass tacks when it comes to shaping their rosters. After weeks of spring training, who has separated themselves? Which prospects and breakout candidates have done enough to earn their spot? Who needs some more time in the Minors? It's time to make some tough decisions.

For the St. Louis Cardinals, this process is particularly fraught. The team has spent this entire offseason frustratingly caught in the middle, not adding the sort of impact talent needed to get back to the postseason for the first time since 2022 but also failing to find a way to kickstart a potential rebuild.

At this point, after a winter in which John Mozeliak didn't do much of anything beyond try and fail to trade Nolan Arenado, the smart move would be to use this season as a chance to figure out which players have a role in St. Louis' future. But as the team's Opening Day roster comes into focus, it seems like Mozeliak and manager Oli Marmol are once again afraid to do anything but tread water.

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Cardinals Opening Day roster decisions call supposed 'reset' into question

We'll get to the good news first: Much to the delight of Cardinals fans everywhere, the team announced over the weekend that Victor Scott II, not Michael Siani, would serve as the starting center fielder to start the year.

Scott II struggled mightily in his first taste of the Majors last year, part of an overarching trend of the team's young talent stagnating of late. But he was one of the top prospects in the organization not too long ago, and he just put together a blistering spring training that suggests he might be ready to access that tantalizing upside. Giving him some runway over Siani, a great defender who's never shown any ability to hit, would make sense for a team with both eyes on the future.

That's where the good vibes end, though. The team refused to carry that foresight over to its starting rotation, where Matthew Liberatore and Steven Matz will serve as the fifth and, eventually, sixth starters, while top prospect Michael McGreevy heads back down to Triple-A.

One of the top pitching prospects in the organization, McGreevy pitched well in a brief MLB cameo last season and followed that up with a superlative spring.

His reward? Sitting behind Liberatore, who's yet to be even an average big-league arm across three seasons in St. Louis, and the soon-to-be 34-year-old Matz, who pitched to a 5.08 ERA last year. Who is this serving, exactly? Why would it not be in the team's best interest to see what they have here, as they set about laying a foundation for the Chaim Bloom era?

And even the Scott II news comes with a bit of trepidation. Marmol has driven Cardinals fans nuts recently with his faith in Siani, who represents a safer choice that the manager has been all too willing to fall back on. While Scott II will start on Opening Day, Siani still seems like a lock to make the MLB roster, and there's nothing to prevent Marmol from plugging him back into the lineup if Scott struggles out of the gate.

It's clear that the Cardinals' current era has run its course; Mozeliak is about to step aside for a reason, after all, and it's not a coincidence that the team spent all offseason flirting with subtracting rather than adding MLB talent. But old habits die hard, and St. Louis seems too afraid of pulling the rip cord and leaning into the curve for its own good.