Cardinals assistant hitting coach Daniel Nicolaisen has resigned, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak confirmed to reporters, including Rob Rains of STL Sports Page. He has accepted a new position as an assistant coach for the University of Mississippi softball team. The Denmark native earned his first big league job this past offseason after two years spent in the Cardinals minor league system. Prior to that, he worked as a softball coach at Seton Hall University. Evidently, he has decided to return to his roots; he grew up playing softball in Denmark.
The Cardinals will be promoting minor league hitting coordinator Russ Steinhorn to fill Nicolaisen’s spot on the major league coaching staff, at least for the time being. Funnily enough, it was Steinhorn who initially hired Nicolaisen as a minor league coach back in 2020.
In other Cardinals news, Mozeliak also confirmed to reporters (including Katie Woo of The Athletic) that Oliver Marmol will return to manage the club in 2024, the final year of his contract. Given the team’s disappointing performance this season – this will be their first losing campaign since 2007 – speculation that Marmol’s job was in jeopardy began to arise. However, the president of baseball operations didn’t mince words, saying, “I know he’ll be back next year.”
Mozeliak continued, “There’s always going to be finger-pointing on what went wrong, what could we have done differently. And that starts with myself…but I’m certainly encouraged with what I see from Oli as a young manager.” Indeed, it’s hard to pin too much of the blame for the Cardinals’ misfortunes on Marmol. While some have criticized his public communication skills and player relations (RE: his squabble with Tyler O’Neill and his initial comments about moving Willson Contreras off catcher), there’s only so much a manager can do when his pitching staff is bleeding runs and so many of his players are underperforming.
Moreover, St. Louis recently lost a long-time clubhouse leader when Yadier Molina retired, and they’re soon to lose another in Adam Wainwright. It’s understandable why Mozeliak doesn’t want to go through another major change in leadership; after all, it’s only been two years since Marmol took the helm, and he led the team to an excellent finish in 2022.
However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be changes coming to the organization. Mozeliak offered praise for much of his coaching staff, including rookie pitching coach Dusty Blake. At the same time, he acknowledged that adjustments must occur behind the scenes. As sources told The Athletic, the Cardinals are in the early stages of restructuring their entire player development system, and the team views improving the baseball operations department to be just as important as adding more pitching.
It’s easy to understand why the Cardinals would want to revamp their player development and baseball operations departments. Several of their top prospects and young players have struggled to perform at the big league level this season, including Matthew Liberatore, Alec Burleson, Dylan Carlson, and Jake Woodford. The team has also struggled to make decisions, such as when they briefly moved Contreras to DH and briefly demoted Jordan Walker. Worst of all, the front office failed to put together a competitive pitching staff over the offseason, instead relying too heavily on a collection of aging veterans, injury-prone pitchers, and rookies. Suffice it to say, it hasn’t worked out.
The Cardinals don’t need to fire their manager, but clearly, they need to make some changes to address everything that has gone wrong in 2023. It seems to be a matter of when, not if, those changes occur.
Mo can’t fire himself I suppose. He’s responsible for this mess.
True.
@good vibes only, there is a like button
You’re very aware of your surroundings, Bones. Congrats!
Can I join the sarcasm train?
Richie Palacios in his very small sample size is something to talk about that John Mozeliak has done right? Obviously very small sample size and he looks to be a dead pull hitter? Similar to Craig Biggio but left handed, the kid is obviously very good at trigonometry as he’s had no problems flagging down balls in the outfield? Made a couple really impressive catches and the Palacios Brothers made history the night he hit two homeruns in Baltimore? Mozeliak purchased the contract from Cleveland and if he starts mashing 30 homeruns a year will make up for selling Adolis Garcia for 30 pieces of silver to the Texas Rangers?
There how’d I do? Good enough for all 5 or 6 of you to hold my beer? Oh you don’t hold budlight…. whoops my bad… Where’s Paul at when you need him, that dude was faithful as ALLLLLL GET OUT!
30 pesos for Adolis. The Judas reference is confusing.
Cards don’t have a hitting problem at all. Even with Arenado and, to a lesser extent, Goldy having off years, they’re still scoring plenty of runs. Gorman is a stud, Walker is figuring stuff out and Winns destroyed AAA. Loads of depth. The pitching market is shooting fish in a barrel this off-season, so they should be all over it. Only problem is they need like 5 or 6 new guys between the rotation and pen, and plenty of other teams (basically all of them) in the market. Big big test for Mozeliak, who basically blew 2023 by not going after more pitching last off-season (not to mention spending so much coin on an all-star third baseman instead of SP a few years ago, when both of their top two prospects were third basemen).
They didn’t spend that much coin at all comparatively speaking. They sent a terrible pitcher for the best 3B in the game. Mo makes a lot of poor choices, but he would have been a fool not to accept that deal as it was structured.
If you get a chance to get a top 10-20 player in the entire game, you do it. and those two third basemen are in the majors contributing.
how many platinum gloves does Nolan have? you dont pass on that
Arenado is NOT having an off-year Goldy is. Arenado will have over a 100 RBI probably 30 homers and will probably .280 off oh yeah have his 11th gold glove!! And you think he’s having an off year?? SMH
He’s literally having the worst year of his career outside of Covid and technically his rookie season. Worst park adjusted numbers and easily his worst defensive season of his career. He’s unlikely to get a gold glove again, he’s been average defensively this year
He’ll probably get a gold glove from name recognition, but point still stands
The top 2 pitchers on the market are Montgomery and Flaherty. Cards aren’t signing those two.
Should’ve got more pitching last offseason. It was the glaring need that everyone saw except the person in charge of fixing it.
Mozeliak will keep his job no matter what. So he keeps Marmol in place in the wake of a disastrous season, and he fires Shildt following a successful one. The logic is overwhelming.
Schildt was probably not fine with being a Yes-man and Marmol does exactly as Mo tells him, that’s really what probably transpired. I’m not a Cardinals fan, but I liked Schildt more.
Ah, that makes sense. It’s a shame such things take priority over winning, but once you understand Mo’s ego is what’s really at stake, we can safely assume logic is not part of the equation.
It’s not all Marmol’s fault, but he deserves a healthy share of blame. Mo said in a previous interview that the coaches deserve none of the blame which is utter nonsense.
So, we hired a college softball coach, and that didn’t work out. Huh? Maybe we can get a short order cook to take a look at our pitching staff. Or maybe a diesel mechanic to improve our defensive positioning. As long as they work cheap, take orders, and never let it leak that the guy in charge has no clue.
Oh, and of course Oli is coming back. After the massive turn around after the break……or, uh whatever. Anyway, the pitchers showed massive growth……..no, wait, that didn’t happen either. Hey! Mo says he’s the guy! That’s all that matters.
Hold your head up high, Donnie O… and maybe let out a wry smile as you’re polishing those rings today. We’re still jealous!
Cardinal fans think they are great baseball minds and could do a better job..
Send in your resume.. Maybe if your willing to work cheap enough DeWitt would hire you
Applause from other NL central teams as will return.
One good starter and 2 good bullpen to go with what they have.
You couldnt be more wrong here….
Marmol caused the O.neill issue going public, which im sure other players saw and didnt appreciate.
He was knee deep in the contreras debacle…. again with comments. he made
He cant manage a bullpen and didnt take defense into account for months.
and you say he had a good 2022… but did he? Or was it Molina and Pujols running the clubhouse and he getting the credit.
I am sure Molina and Pujols as well as Shumacher are the reason the cards seemed well managed, now no one is around to run the club. Marmol continues to burn the bull pen down with constant use. He could never decide on a line up, always changing things up and showing how stupid he is, always outsmarting himself, now that his hands are tied with injuries we have a regular line up that is doing well. Marmol and Mo are idiots.
Unfortunately, the Cards will figure it out. They always do.
Normally I’d agree with that statement, but their in-house cleaning might take another season so might have another down year next year.
This is why MLB is awful these days. Hiring a guy who’s only experience was playing and coaching softball? Lol I’d bet he left because the players had no respect for him. Smh
The assistant softball coach fired the Cardinals.
They’re gonna end up leading the central at the all star break with a top 8 pick in the draft
All the prospects they got at the deadline give the appearance of being contributors at the big league level at some point or fodder for trades for big league pitchers. They look like they made the best out of their terrible off season.
Molina or pujols would be a good manager or holiday.
“Funnily enough“
College softball coach WOW. No knock on softball but the game is different im sure the local TBall coach was available. I’m starting over if I’m the owner starting with Yaddy as manager and putting some good baseball (MLB) minds around him
Funny thing, baseball hitters can’t hit softball pitchers. Look it up. I have to imagine there’s a degree of commonality with some significant differences. So, good for him that he can coach both.
There’s no proof that he can coach both. There’s only proof that he’s willing to carry the title in both.
Naturally Marmol stays. He gets protected due to his ethnicity.
idiot comment
That’s the most important qualification for anything these days.
The Cardinals are not as bad a team as their record shows. The lineup, the rotation and the game time pen is mismanaged. The manager learns nothing but blames the players.
The lineup has been great, while the rotation has been legitimately awful much of the time. You may have a point with the bullpen, but Marmol isn’t much to blame for the rotation not panning out, while there’s no blame to be placed on the lineup in the first place (save for the minor controversies with O’Neill and Contreras that ultimately didn’t matter much).
The only reason Marmol did well last year was Skip Schumacher was basically making all the decisions , Marmol is an idiot . We should have made Skip the manager, but then MO would not have his Muppet Marmol to control. Card owners need to fire MO and Marmol and move on.
So to recap, Maddux resigns to take time off only to sign with the rangers the SAME OFFSEASON. Albert resigns because of hurtful online comments and scrutiny only to take a job in NEW YORK CITY the same offseason. Matt Holliday took a job then all of a sudden, after years of playing MLB fully aware what travel and commitment are like, QUITS to spend time with family. Now a resignation where the dude would rather coach softball.
And let’s not dare forget about the sudden firing of Mike Shildt.
No one wants to work for that clown show team any more.
How many of us Cardinal fans talked amongst each other and was extremely frustrated when basically the only move the front office made was signing Contreras? We all said “that’s all they are going to do?” What about more pitching? Another big bat?
Benstl is absolutely correct in saying Marmol doesn’t know how to use the bullpen correctly. I’ve seen him pull pitchers that are pitching well and his bullpen replacement gives up four or five runs. Seen it all season.
This announcement just proves that after 20+ years of relative success, the Cardinals are bored with winning. They have decided to shift gears and fully commit to losing. They obviously(correctly) believe that Oli is the perfect guy to lead the franchise in this new direction. When you here people talk about leadership, vision, and decisive action, this is the kind of moves they are referring to.
*hear*
To be fair, Marmol was perfectly fine as the manager in 2022. He deserves another chance after just one bad season before he’s on the hot seat.
At least this breaking Cardinal news is in the right order of importance. Assistant soft ball coach leaving team and over his head manager is staying.
The Pirates need to do the same thing that the Cardinals plan to do.
But they won’t.
Trash franchise and the rats are starting to flee the sinking ship!!
First losing season since 2007 and the most World Series titles in National League history is a “trash franchise?” Sure…
Motie has to land a #1 starter for 2024. Accomplishing that via trade will be a nonstarter. So it is Snellzilla or Motie is just flapping his gums again. I don’t foresee a poverty franchise lining up to dump a Goldy or Arrenado level player this time around.
Mozeliak is a joke if he keeps Marmol for 2024. Definite shortcomings that are far beyond simply not having starting pitching. Expect nothing better with Marmol at the helm in 2024.
That Mikolas extension is looking worse with every start. I’m sorry. Mo gets more wrong than he gets right. Marmol is one of the things he’s gotten wrong.
I get playing the left right splits. I don’t get playing them blindly by replacing people hit slightly less against same armed pitchers by those who can’t hit anyone.
He’s only doing that to give the young guys some experience when the season is already lost. If the Cardinals were actually in contention, he certainly wouldn’t be giving guys like Baker and Fermin much playing time, while Winn would still be in AAA.
I have no problem giving young guys experience if they are a part of the plan going forward. Querecuto is a 30 year old journeyman AAA player. Nootbaar has a noticable platoon split. He still hits lefties better than Querecuto ever will. Querecuto and Fermin should be emergency back ups and late game defensive replacements. Both of them are future non tender candidates.
Marmol always blindly plays the splits even when the players have little to no platoon issues. He plays it even when a player has reverse splits. That blind devotion to platoon splits is also a major reason he keeps moving people all over the field. The Cardinals have the worst defense in the league as a result. I don’t expect anything to improve next year because everyone in management thinks they are doing everything right. The fact that every aspect of the Cardinals game deteriorated noticeably this year says they aren’t doing everything right.
The fact remains that he’s only doing it because they’re already out of it. He didn’t do it last year, and he didn’t do it early this season except as a means to figure out who the best young hitters were in an overcrowded outfield and middle infield. Once he found out that Burleson, Yepez, Carlson, and Edman weren’t playing as well as Gorman, Nootbaar, DeJong (during the first half), and Walker (offensively and after his recall), the former lost playing time to the latter guys (or rode the Memphis shuttle in Yepez’s case) until DeJong was traded away and some injuries occurred.
If the Cardinals were contending, Marmol would absolutely only be playing those guys as such, but that’s not the case.
This makes sense, as even when the team sucks every single year, they’ll usually give a new manager at least 3 years before firing him. Marmol has done better than that so far with the team having one good year and one bad year with him as the skipper.