The Cardinals and manager Oli Marmol have opened early extension conversations, writes Derrick Goold of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. It seems likely that some kind of multi-year agreement will be reached this offseason. Marmol is headed into the final guaranteed year of his contract. Most teams prefer to have their skipper and top front office personnel signed beyond the upcoming season.
This is the first year atop baseball operations for Chaim Bloom. He immediately confirmed that Marmol would be back for his fifth season at the helm. Bloom said in late September that the sides had yet to begin extension talks but noted those were likely to take place over the offseason.
The Cardinals have gone 325-323 in the regular season over the first four seasons of Marmol’s tenure. They won 93 games and an NL Central crown in 2022, his first year at the helm. Philadelphia swept them in the Wild Card Series and they haven’t returned to the playoffs since then. The Cardinals had a dismal 71-91 showing in 2023 and played right around .500 ball over the past two seasons.
Marmol’s managerial record is unlikely to improve in the short term. The Cardinals are cutting payroll and more fully committing to a rebuild after doing very little last offseason. They’ve already sent Sonny Gray to Boston. Nolan Arenado has probably played his final game in a St. Louis uniform as well. Brendan Donovan is one of the prizes of the offseason trade market. Willson Contreras, JoJo Romero, Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Gorman and Alec Burleson have all come up in trade rumors. The Cardinals aren’t going to move everyone from that group, but Gray was the first of what should be multiple dominoes to fall.
Bloom and ownership clearly believe the 39-year-old Marmol remains the right choice to oversee the team’s next phase. Their main focus for at least the next season or two is on player development. They’ll need someone to join Masyn Winn and Iván Herrera among their core position player group, but the biggest factor is whether they can reinvigorate a pitching staff that has not missed enough bats. Only the Rockies have a lower strikeout rate over the last three years.
Ironing out an extension with Marmol would be the team’s final bit of coaching business for this offseason. Their 2026 staff is in place, as they announced the full slate of hires this afternoon. Casey Chenoweth and Kyle Driscoll join the group as assistant hitting coach and assistant pitching coach, respectively.
Chenoweth, 33, is promoted to the MLB staff after spending three seasons coaching minor league hitters in the organization. He has spent the last two seasons at Double-A Springfield, where he worked with notable prospects including JJ Wetherholt, Joshua Baez and Leonardo Bernal — the latter two of whom were added to the 40-man roster last week. The 31-year-old Driscoll is a former college relief pitcher (Rutgers) who spent the ’25 season as a minor league pitching coordinator with the Diamondbacks. He’d previously worked in the Mets’ system as a Triple-A pitching coach. This is his first job on a big league staff.
The rest of the group are holdovers from a largely unchanged 2025 staff. Bench coach Daniel Descalso, pitching coach Dusty Blake, hitting coach Brant Brown, base coaches Stubby Clapp (first) and Pop Warner (third), outfield coach Jon Jay, assistant hitting coach Brandon Allen, bullpen coach Julio Rangel, and assistant coach Jamie Pogue are all back. Former assistant pitching coach Dean Kiekhefer and game planning coach Packy Elkins will respectively work as pitching and offense strategists to bridge the gap between the analytics department and on-field staff, Goold writes.
I’ve worked as a counsellor for 30 years. I’ve heard it all!
Nothing really shocks me.
But this shocks me……
I am reminded of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, because DeWitt and Bloom must want a puppet.
Is this a joke? Seriously? This can’t be real!
Truth is stranger than fiction….
I don’t believe both Moz and Bloom both agree that marmol is a good manager, I wonder if the Dewitt’s really like him or something
@sad
It’s has nothing to do with he is good or not it all has to do with that he is a yes man and will do the gm/pbo bidding.
No no no no no no no, please no
Marmol is a bottom 3 manager in the game. People wonder why he gets to stay but the answer lies in the GM/head of OPS. Marmol is a puppet that does what he is told. He definetly does not represent the classic “Cardinal Way”. Skip Schumaker would have been a perfect fit
Field Managers are middle management and puppets by definition.
Bottom 3 manager by what metrics exactly? I doubt any other manager could have done better with the rosters Marmol has had the last 2 years. 2025 Cards were expected to lose 90+ games and werent eliminated until there were 3 games left in the season.
Also the classic “Cardinal Way” doesn’t win ballgames anymore, they need to get away from pitching to contact and ground balls like the rest of the league has. It doesnt work like it did 20 years ago
A supposed Cubs fan supporting Marmol…
I guess this will tell us how long of a rebuild it will be.
This makes a lot of sense. It will at least be 2029 before the Cardinals are any good again, unless they do a 180 and start buying players. Marmol keeps the room light and defends his players to fault with the media. You don’t bring in a new manager when you know you aren’t going to be competitive. The length of his contract will indicate how long they think the rebuild will take. Then add two more years because they are a lot farther away then the think. So when the corner is about to turn, that’s when you fire Oli. By then he will have taken most of his lumps, should have learned how to manage and should be very good at his next stop if he doesn’t sign with another team on a downward projection again .
As AI would say, I think this is just about perfect.
That would be the Astros model they’re following. Bo Porter managed through the rebuild, and they pulled the chain on him when the team began turning the corner. Expecting the extension to be 3 or 4 years.
Marmol defends his players to a fault? Ask Tyler O’Neill about that.
“at least 2029?” The Tigers went from 119 losses to the World Series in three years. A rebuild won’t have to take four+ years.
@gbs42
Tbh a rebuild can take a few years to indefinitely (just look at col), it all depends on how the talent on the farm grows, and who’s running it.
Yes. And they did that because they were really bad from 2015 until last year. Like 9 years. They drafted him n the top 10 six times. Got lucky with a 9th round pick in Skubal. Let’s not act like they had two bad years and turned it around. That’s a great comp for the Card’s actually. 9 years from the time they realize they are in really bad shape. So yes, 2029 if they don’t start spending $$$ for players. Maybe longer if they think they actually have a good farm now.
I just came to read the comments and say I think the Cardinals brain trust have lost their ever lovin’ minds.
No!! No!!! Please God no!!
Nooooooooooooooooo!
Going to have to find something to do in the summers now!!
Hug a Cardinals fan yall
How can you keep saying Winn is a “core player” when you keep hearing whispers of trade rumors? He’s a glove first below average hitter. He, like almost everyone else on the roster would be fine if he was the 8th or 9th position player you chose to roster. But that’s the team is. All last picks in gym class guys. Until they bring in multiple legit and feared hitters, nobody on the team is worth keeping.
He’s 23. And in what world would he be a “last picks in gym glass” guy? Ps-getting picked last in gym class is less of a sign of your athleticism and more of a sign of your popularity. All the kids with the pumped up kicks get picked
I agree Winn is at peak value now and should be turned into longer term prospects while his bat is still expected to improve(I don’t see it happening). But, he is at least a quality mlb starter long term at SS, Andrelton Simmons light is what I’d imagine. The. Cardinals need to cash in on everything they have that any team would give up good prospects for. They need to trust and lean on their scouting and hope that they pick the right players coming back. They also need to fill out the roster with bounce back candidates that they can hope to flip and get more prospects. It is all going to come down to scouting and development having a keen eye for what enters their organization. That is the failure that brought them to mediocrity.
Oli oli all come free
I’m waiting for them to bring back Miles Mikolas…. That would make about as much sense as signing Marmol to a contract extension….
What a joke….
They are in a rebuild, it only makes sense to keep Oli at the helm. No one worth having is going to be interested in being the Cards skipper for the next three years when we are likely to finish at the bottom of the central for the immediate future.
If you can’t accept that then I don’t know what to tell ya.
I do not like this Sam I Am I do not like this at all. He has not proven to be a good manager at all.
What a joke… a guy that never should have been given the job to begin with, should have been fired long before he was given that Mozeliak feel-good extension, and now is being considered for an extension so he is not a lame duck manager. Stop the insanity. Marmol is a mediocre MLB manager. Cut him loose.
As a Brewers fan and long time Cardinals hater, I’d love to see Marmol get a lifetime contract.
You melted Shildts brain. So much misery.
The comments are hilarious. I doubt they have four brain cells between them.
Lol Missouri
Well, I’m glad you don’t contribute to the comments because you have no braincells, chefly1
Why?
These morons that think Ollie isn’t a good manager either never watch any games or know nothing about baseball. His handling of the bullpen was superb this year, & his moving of position players to both give young players “runway” and get veterans enough playtime was excellent. No one could have done a better job.
He’s at least as incapable of bestjng the Brew Crew as Craig Counselor grant you that
Okay, Oliver “donl” Marmol, we get it, you’re a world-class manager
Why
The way this makes sense is if the Reds hire favourite son and all around good guy Todd Frazier as their skipper. Then if Oli were ever to one day prevail in head to head battle: Down Goes Frazier!
Marmol is fine. All this pearl-clutching for a rebuilding team is ridiculous,
No point in bringing in a good manager if you plan on being in the cellar the next few years.
Marmol is an idiot! Lol
Marmol has out performed expectations the last two years. The Cards have won games they should not have. Can’t blame a blown save on the manager unless he has run his closer out two days in a row or for more than an inning. The roster was built with the expectation that players like Gorman and Walker would produce while developing and the starting pitchers were a bunch of #5’s once you passed Gray’s turn in the rotation. The rotation has been sketchy since Carpenter had to retire. This disaster is all on the front office and ownerships spending from 2020 forward. The Walkers and Gormans would have been role players on a team built to win before being expected to produce. The Jon Jay’s and Allen Craig’s had the role player role on the bench and fill in starts before becoming starters on quality teams. When STL skipped that step with so many now it does not set them up to succeed. Marmol can only work with the lineup, rotation and pen he is given. Who even knows if he is any good at his job? How can you tell….
Is this an early April Fools Joke? Marmol is an idiot, thankfully I’m not wasting my money on season tickets any more. This is crazy , goes right along with calling Dusty Blake a pitching coach, he’s a statistics guy , knows what to tell them to throw , but can’t help with mechanics .
Marmol should have left with MO.