Wednesday, May 13

Three years ago, you wondered how long Oliver Marmol was going to last as the Cardinals’ manager.

Then 36, his managerial career had gotten off to a splendid start the year before, when he had taken over for Mike Shildt and led a veteran Cardinals team to an NL Central title. But then things turned.

It started with some very questionable decisions in the 2022 NL Wild Card Series loss against the Phillies and crested with the nightmare 2023 season, one that began with controversies involving established regulars Tyler O’Neill and Willson Contreras. That season ended with the Cardinals’ one last-place finish of the last 35 years. As the team began transitioning away from the John Mozeliak era, Marmol was in danger of taking the blame for the team’s decline.

But, remarkably, that has not happened. In fact, the opposite has.

Marmol seemingly has secured his status with the franchise. He signed a preseason extension that will keep him in the dugout through at least the 2028 season (with a 2029 option). Sometime in the next week, he’ll pass Joe Torre for 10th place on the Cardinals’ all-time managerial win list. Incredibly, he even has won over a large number of the skeptics who thought he was toast. (I know: I’m one of them.)

Marmol not only may end up one of the winningest Cardinals managers ever, he’ll have done so while transitioning from one Cardinals era to another entirely … and he’ll still be only 43 years old. And, in the wake of the team’s surprise start to 2026, I rarely hear any Cardinals fans calling for his job anymore. He’s now seen as the steady hand.

How did he pull this off? Here are four ways Marmol has overcome his early stumbles to become integral to everything the Cardinals are doing now -- and in the future.

1) He has become a deft bullpen manager

The management of Ryan Helsley in that 2022 NL Wild Card Series was the original sin that turned many Cardinals fans against Marmol, but in terms of tangible on-field impact, Marmol’s bullpen lever-pulling has become his primary strength since then. In 2024, he essentially built an entire ‘pen around the best year of Helsley’s career, and in 2025 he helped maneuver a makeshift group full of castoffs and waiver finds into a relief corps that was top 10 in ERA (3.74).

Part of this is having clear plans and patterns -- Marmol loves his reliever roles -- but he has also shown flexibility and a willingness to put relievers he trusts in high-leverage positions even if they haven’t been there before. We’ve seen that this year specifically with relievers such as George Soriano, who struggled early but has become one of the Cardinals’ best relievers. Arms that Marmol had been counting on -- Ryne Stanek, Matt Svanson and Chris Roycroft, to name a few -- have notably struggled. But the Cardinals still keep winning close games, with Marmol relying on Riley O’Brien and JoJo Romero but not overusing them just yet. He doesn’t have a lot to work with in the ‘pen this year. But the Cardinals keep finding ways to win.

2) He has focused on young players

Marmol’s emphasis with the organization -- an organization he has been part of since being drafted in the sixth round in 2007 -- has always been on working with young players. That is why the youth movement this year has served him well. He has shown patience with them but has also known when to push them or even lightly criticize them; it’s quite easy to draw a straight line between his “I need to see a sense of urgency from him” comments about Jordan Walker last year to Walker’s breakthrough this year.

Marmol is not from the crusty old school, and you can see it in the patience and steadiness with a roster that has almost no one older than the age of 27. Development was key to Marmol’s success before Chaim Bloom arrived and made it the focus of the entire organization. Marmol may in fact be a better fit managing kids than he ever was managing veterans -- many of whom were, in fact, older than Marmol.

3) He has calmed down a bit

In his first couple of seasons, Marmol had some heated arguments with umpires and showed a tendency to lose his cool a lot. You don’t see that much anymore. There’s a calmness to Marmol that wasn’t there in his first couple of years, even a sense of humor. He answers postgame questions calmly and makes regular local media appearances in which he clearly and straightforwardly explains his decision-making process. He has, in public ways both on and off the field, grown into the job.

4) He understands his role

You don’t get hired by one front-office administration and kept on by an entirely new one without being able to get with the program. Marmol -- who, again, is about to celebrate 20 years in the Cardinals’ organization -- is not one of those managers who demands control. By all accounts, he works closely with Bloom and other Cardinals executives in a way that’s not dissimilar from what he did with Mozeliak.

That’s a feature, not a bug, for managers in the game today. The job is less like the old Tony La Russa manager and more like a middle manager: Your job is to be the liaison between the clubhouse and the front office, and to serve as the daily, public face of the organization. Marmol has unquestionably improved each of those aspects of the job since 2022, which is why he’s almost certain to remain in the job through 2029.

Also: The Cardinals are winning. That does always help. The Cardinals are in a period of transition. But Marmol feels like a constant. In an age of managers taking the blame when things go wrong, Marmol’s steadiness has kept him in charge. And will surely continue to do so. Who would have thunk it?

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