THE REDBIRD REVIEW
Cardinals president of baseball ops Chaim Bloom cited a number of factors in his decision to go forward with manager Oli Marmol.
An important consideration was Marmol’s extensive background in guiding baby Cardinals during his formative years as a minor-league coach and manager in the St. Louis system.
Installed in a leadership role for four Cardinal farm teams over five seasons – which included managing at two different Class A levels – Marmol was an influential presence in developing at least 25 players who went on to play in the majors.
The list prominent “Oli School” alums includes these names:
Sandy Alcantara, Jack Flaherty, Dakota Hudson, Carson Kelly, Luke Voit, Charlie Tilson, Aledmys Diaz, Alex Reyes, Edmundo Sosa, Austin Gomber, Marco Gonzales, Kyle Barraclough, Daniel Bard, Oscar Mercado, Josh Lucas, Sam Tuivailala, Mitch Harris and Daniel Ponce de Leon.
Marmol did effective work on STL talent pipeline, and this led to his promotion to the major-league coaching staff in 2017. His teaching and instruction didn’t end there.
As Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said in announcing Marmol’s contract extension:
“He understands what the Cardinals are all about. Made good players out of (young) players coming up through the system and his various roles in the minor leagues, and became a major league manager, and he's run with it.”
And we didn’t know it at the time, but Marmol played a significant behind-the-scenes role in assisting Bloom as the organization’s new baseball leader began the process of making massive renovations to a crumbling player-development and farm system.
Bloom revealed this on Sunday, and to me it was the most interesting and important information presented during the news conference.
“He was a big part of a lot of what we were doing as I was overseeing what we did in player development and performance,” Bloom said. “Being part of even helping craft the vision, interviewing candidates, recruiting candidates, involved deeply in a lot of what we were building there with our new leadership there.
“And that's because he understands how important it is for us to be one organization top to bottom and how important it is what we're doing there is not just for players in the minor leagues but for everything that we're building because it's all one program and it all flows up and down the organization.
“And now in this role, it's led to some really good stuff where we were able to roll out and start doing a lot of things last year down below, and now it's very natural and smooth to be able to bring those into the big league space too … it just really helped to be able to lay that groundwork with him so that we can now do this together at this level.”
Wow.
And folks were surprised that Bloom stayed the course with Marmol?
From that thorough Bloom description it sounds as if Oli was a secret assistant GM over the past 18 months or so.
It’s not an exaggeration to say Marmol was a meaningful aide de camp to Bloom in shaping the long-term baseball future for a franchise that had lost its way.
To that end, Marmol was part of the planning that led to a swift and dramatic revival of a deteriorated farm-development system. And we have nincompoops out there who continue to refer to Marmol as a puppet?
Absolutely hysterical. I didn’t realize that a lowly “puppet” was capable of managing a major-league team AND stepping up to serve as a substantial adviser in the Cardinals’ comprehensive reconstruction going on below the big-league level.
This realization will cause some of the Oli agitators to careen to the fainting couch, but it is true: Marmol is actually more than just this team’s manager. And that makes sense considering the agency Marmol has established with this franchise over the last 20 years.
I’ve been looking at Marmol’s work with young players during his first four seasons as Cards manager. Actually, I went back to 2019, when Marmol became the bench coach for manager Mike Shildt. Marmol had some juice in that role, and spent considerable time working with the players – especially the young dudes. The bench coach is a go-to counselor for any player who is frustrated, unhappy, angry or suffering a crisis in confidence.
Let’s take a look at Wins Above Replacement rankings for Redbird rookie players and pitchers.
St. Louis Cardinals Rookies, 2019-2025
— WAR ranking for rookie position players, and this encompasses offense, defense and baserunning. St. Louis was an impressive No. 2 in the majors to Milwaukee.
— WAR ranking for rookie pitchers: St. Louis was 13th overall, and 6th in the NL. That includes the No. 2 team WAR ranking for rookie relievers; only the Dodgers did better in this area than the Cardinals.
However …
If you want to gauge the WAR performance by Cardinal rookies during Marmol’s four seasons (2022-2025) as manager … Well, I can do that.
St. Louis Cardinals Rookies, 2022-2025
— Position players: 5th overall in the majors, and 2nd in the NL.
— Pitchers: 18th overall, 9th in the NL.
— Starting pitchers: 23rd overall, 10th in the majors.
— Relievers: 7th overall, 3rd in the NL.
If you want to blame Marmol for that poor showing by rookie starting pitchers, then have a blast. You would be misguided, sure. But have fun!
With Marmol as the manager, the Cardinals have gotten 80 starts from rookie throwers. But that’s misleading because one of the rookie pitchers, Matthew Liberatore, was mostly made “starts” as a reliever. He wasn’t in a true starting role until 2025 – and by then he wasn’t a rookie.
Otherwise, the rookie starters were Andre Pallante, Michael McGreevy, Zack Thompson, Drew Rom, Packy Naughton, and Gordon Graceffo. But Naughton and Graceffo were relievers making those “opener” type of starts that aren’t traditional starts.
What that rookie starting-pitcher WAR really tells us should be obvious: it clearly represents the Cardinals’ glaring failure to draft and develop starting pitching.
From 2010 through 2019, here’s the roll call of good + young starting pitchers drafted and developed (or signed as an international amateur) by the Cardinals under the leadership of Jeff Luhnow and his brilliant analytics staff:
Jaime Garcia
Lance Lynn
Jack Flaherty
Carlos Martinez
Shelby Miller
Luke Weaver
Michael Wacha
Joe Kelly
Marco Gonzales
Alex Reyes
Austin Gomber
Compare that to the previous list of names that I gave you of rookie starting pitchers for the Cardinals from 2022 through 2025. My gosh, what a downfall.
Rookie position players who have broken into the majors under manager Marmol to attain early success include Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Ivan Herrera, Alec Burleson, Nolan Gorman, Jordan Walker, Juan Yepez, and Pedro Pages.
Victor Scott is a partial success; he’s a fantastic center fielder and stealer of bases but has been rather futile at the plate. Perhaps he’ll improve in 2026.
Thomas Saggese hasn’t prospered in his relatively brief time in the majors but he has plenty of offensive potential. Marmol and the staff are excited to turn him loose in a Tommy Edman role.
Why did I put Gorman and Walker on there? Maybe because Gorman, in his first two MLB seasons, slugged .454, cranked 41 home runs, put up a .771 OPS and was 11 percent above league average offensively per wRC+. Maybe it’s because Jordan Walker delivered a good rookie season offensively in 2023 that included a .276 average, .787 OPS, 16 homers, 19 doubles and a wRC+ that made him 16 percent above league average.
Both Gorman and Walker have collapsed over the past two seasons, and Marmol and staff (and Bloom’s new hires) are trying desperately to get them back on track. A lot of this depends on the players; Gorman and Walker aren’t toddlers. They have an obligation to accept and implement coaching instead of winging it. But in this town, it’s so much easier to blame the manager for everything.
I don’t know … you think maybe Marmol and the coaches (and others) have talked to Gorman about chasing so many pitches out of the strike zone – and not swinging at enough pitches that travel into the strike zone?
You think that perhaps the manager and staff have told Walker to lay off those down-and-away sliders that he can’t resist? For goodness sake, why does any manager of coach have to even tell a young hitter to stop swinging at that manure? The supervisors can’t take the at-bats for them.
It hasn’t helped that Gorman, as has been sidelined a total of 59 days with four stays on the Injured List. His conditioning has been called into question. Walker was sidelined twice by injuries last season that caused him to miss 42 days.
Nootbaar’s career, while solid, was slowed by injuries as well. Six times on the IL; 111 days missed. And he’ll open 2026 on the IL again as he recovers from double-heel surgery.
Let’s take a look at two other hitters who failed here and ran out of time. Marmol managed outfielders Tyler O’Neill and Dylan Carlson (together) in 2022 and 2023. Both players were extremely disappointing.
The Cardinals traded O'Neill after the 2023 season and cleared Carlson out in a trade at the 2024 deadline.
Over the two seasons O’Neill and Carlson went on the Injured List nine times (five by O’Neill) and missed a combined 241 games.
I’m thinking that matters. How can you be consistent as a hitter when you’ve taken out a lease to live in the trainer’s room?
In 2022 and 2023 (combined), Carlson and O’Neill were available – at the same time – for an average of 80 games per season.
(Footnote: In his last two seasons, with Boston and then Baltimore, O’Neill has been on the IL six times and missed 139 games. Carlson can’t maintain his weight or necessary strength, and two teams, Tampa Bay and Baltimore, gave him a chance and let him go.)
Are we not pleased with Burleson’s progress and offensive breakout in 2025? Did we like seeing him improve defensively? I have a theory: it helps to pay attention to the manager and coaches who really want to make you better. So maybe do like Burly and try to take their advice to heart.
I also assume that future young Redbirds hitters and fielders will benefit from the all-out buildup of the player development system. And the pitching pipeline being created by Bloom and his development team will reopen soon.
During Marmol’s time as manager here, we’ve seen a group of young pitchers emerge in a way that stands out. Liberatore and McGreevy are among them. So are Matt Svanson , Kyle Leahy, JoJo Romero, Riley O’Brien, Ryan Fernandez (as a rookie in 2024). Pallante was awful last season but he had a terrific 2024.
More armaments are on the way because of Bloom's push to acquire pitching depth. The Cards will have more starting-pitching options in 2026, and we already know about Marmol’s ability to develop and run a bullpen. It's impressive.
JoJo Romero was a nobody in Philadelphia until being traded in 2022 – during his rookie season – to the Cardinals for Edmundo Sosa.
Romero has transformed his career here because Marmol knows how to use him. Matt Svanson – just as Romero before him – is fortunate that the Cards acquired him in a trade. In 2025, Svanson had one of the very best rookie seasons by a Cardinal reliever in franchise history.
I hear it all the time: the Cardinals’ young players/pitchers just don’t get better under Marmol. Much of that is based on the fizzling out of Walker and Gorman, or the heavy-injury crash-outs of O’Neill and Carlson.
Gorman and Walker have played a combined seven seasons in the majors. Three have been good; four have been lousy. It’s time for them to take more responsibility for their careers. The help is there for them now ... in abundance.
As I’ve shown in this piece, overall the Cardinals’ rookies have done well as they graduate to the majors and begin their big-league careers. Marmol has done a better job in this area than he’s been given credit for. That’s nothing new.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Bernie was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2023. During a St. Louis sports-media career that goes back to 1985, he’s won multiple national awards for column writing and sports-talk hosting – and was the lead sports columnist at the Post-Dispatch from 1989 through 2015.
Before that Bernie spent a year at the Dallas Morning News, covering the Dallas Cowboys during Tom Landry’s final season (1988) plus the sale of the team to Jerry Jones and the hiring of Jimmy Johnson as coach.
Bernie has covered several Baseball Hall of Fame managers during his media career including Tony La Russa, Whitey Herzog, Earl Weaver, Joe Torre and (as an interim) Red Schoendienst. In his career as a beatwriter and columnist, Bernie covered Pro Football Hall of Fame coaches Joe Gibbs, Tom Landry, Jimmy Johnson and Dick Vermeil on a daily basis.
Bernie has covered and written about many great St. Louis sports team athletes including Albert Pujols, Kurt Warner, Brett Hull, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Jim Edmonds, Marshall Faulk, Scott Rolen, Mark McGwire, Orlando Pace, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, Al MacInnis, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko, Chris Pronger, Dan Dierdorf, Jackie Smith and Aeneas Williams.
Bernie covered every baseball Cardinals’ postseason game from 1996 through 2014 and was there to chronicle teams that won four NL pennants and two World Series. He provided extensive coverage on the “Greatest Show” St. Louis Rams and has written extensively on the St. Louis Blues, Saint Louis U, and Mizzou football and basketball.
Bernie was/is a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame, Pro Football Hall of Fame, Heisman Trophy and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame.
You can access his columns, videos and the podcast version of the videos here on STLSportsCentral, catch him regularly on KMOX (AM or FM) as part of the Gashouse Gang, Sports Rush Hour, Sports Open Line or Sports On a Sunday Morning shows.
And you can catch weekly “reunion” segments here at STL Sports Central featuring Bernie and his longtime friend Randy Karraker.