The president of the baseball operations department of the Cardinals, John Mozeliak, assured that he would find a manager for the club quickly. Very talented among the organization’s coaches, he explicitly said there were internal candidates to take over and bring a new World Series to St. Louis.
That apparently came true. Current big-team bench coach Oliver “Oli” Mármol is expected to be named the 51st manager in Cardinals history on Monday, a source confirmed to MLB.com’s Jon Paul Morosi. The hiring was first reported by MLB Network’s Ken Rosenthal and Katie Woo for The Athletic.
Marmol, just 35 years old, would be the youngest manager in the majors.
The club has not confirmed the news, but a press conference was announced Monday at 11 am ET. Former manager Mike Shildt was released on October 14 due to “philosophical differences” between him and the board.
Mármol will be the fourth Latino manager to lead a Major League Baseball team in 2022, alongside Puerto Rican Charlie Montoyo (Blue Jays), Dave Martinez (Nationals) and Puerto Rican Alex Cora (Red Sox).
By appointing Mármol, the team is putting all their trust in a person they have been coaching for years within the same organization. Marmol was taken over by San Luis in the sixth round of the 2007 draft, before soon swapping his playing days for a coach role. He was an indirect disciple of Tony La Russa, learning from the legendary manager during Spring Training.
Marble was discovered by Shildt when the latter was a young scout for the organization. The two always had a close relationship and Marmol was Shildt’s bench coach for the past three seasons. Marmol, like Shildt, has no experience as a player or manager in the majors before taking on his first big job at the helm of a clubhouse. He has led the Cardinals’ Class A Low team, the Palm Beach Cardinals, and the Johnson City Cardinals, which was the franchise’s Rookie category team until 2021.
Marmol, who speaks Spanish as a native language and will be the first minority manager to lead the Cardinals full-time, will now inherit Shildt’s clubhouse, under whose leadership the club went to the postseason for the past three years. He will have at his disposal a roster of young stars, perennial MVP candidates and astute veterans, including Adam Wainwright and Puerto Rican Yadier Molina, both older than his new manager.
And most important of all, Mármol will take on a club that will aim to be crowned in 2022.
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