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The club finished last for the second time in a century, in 2023. And that was in spite of being favored to win their division.
This year they finished 10 games out in the division after being pre-season division co-favorites, and they also missed the last wildcard slot by a half dozen games.
Maybe some folks are already numb to this Era Of Failure, but for me 2023/24 constitutes a completely unacceptable two-season disaster. So it’s time to make a profound managerial change. And that means doing what they did when they hired Whitey Herzog and again when they hired Tony LaRussa.
In short, they must hire a manager who is already on a clear Hall Of Fame career path — but also not real old. They do this, and make a couple of shrewd trades from their conspicuous roster redundancies, and this could be an 88-90 win team in 2025, despite a significantly lower payroll.
In short, they must hire a manager who is already on a clear Hall Of Fame career path — but also not real old. They do this, and make a couple of shrewd trades from their conspicuous roster redundancies, and this could be an 88-90 win team in 2025, despite a significantly lower payroll.
Amen!
As GC noted, any discussion of replacing Marmol is academic.
Having said that, we’ve read yet another detailed post extolling the virtues of hiring a future Hall of Fame manager. That sounds really good, but they always stop short. When pressed to get real and actually name names, the only guy they throw out is Bruce Bochy, who turns 70 early next season.
P.S. FWIW, I think they already had him in Mike Shildt…
I have to disagree with my colleagues who claim that we are a manager and a trade or two away from being a contender. I just don’t see it that way. I view this as a crumbling organization who has neglected their foundation for a decade and are now paying the price. The good news is that they finally seem to realize it and are going to take some productive actions to remedy the situation (we hope).
Yes that means Mo for one more year and Marmol for one or two more years. Not ideal but we aren’t ready to win anyway. Mo will be gone by 2026 and Marmol shortly thereafter. Hopefully by then the foundation will be in place to start churning out good teams like we did from 2004-2014.
“Having said that, we’ve read yet another detailed post extolling the virtues of hiring a future Hall of Fame manager. That sounds really good, but they always stop short. When pressed to get real and actually name names, the only guy they throw out is Bruce Bochy, who turns 70 early next season.”
Fair point.
If we ever-so-slightly expand “future HOF manager” to “plausible future HOF manager,” I would say the following would all qualify (some will be available, some won’t, some are kinda long in the tooth, but you only need to hire one of them, so humor me for pete’s sake):Aaron Boone
Kevin Cash
Terry Francona
Joe Maddon
Mike Matheny
Buck Showalter
Rob ThomsonApologies to anyone I’m forgetting. In any case, the broader point is that the St. Louis Cardinals should stop being a Frankensteinian managerial lab, and get back to being a prestige franchise that values proven excellence in its manager, rather than youth or obedience or whatever else they’ve been (over)valuing lately.
At the time that the Cardinals hired both Whitey Herzog and TLR, there was no clear indication that either one of those names would end up being inducted into the HOF as managers. However, what was abundantly clear was that each of them were well experienced as Big League managers who had thus far displayed a consistent ability to lead their respective teams to collect W’s and qualify for post-season baseball. The guy that the Cardinals fired before deciding to hire the current clown is batting .1000 in his ability to lead his baseball teams to W’s and qualify for bonus baseball. He hasn’t missed. Not once. And he’s now 4 for 4. At any rate, I don’t think eother Whitey Herzog or TLR were worthy of HOF consideration until after they had managed the St. Louis, Cardinals. What I’m driving at is that I think the Cardinals need to place someone on the top step of the dugout who has demonstrated that they may know what the heck they’re doing.
FWIW, Francona is 65 and retired due to poor health.
Maddon is 70.
Showalter is 68.May as well include Bochy, too.
Matheny is not on even a plausible Hall of Fame track. The other three I know less about.
They’ll hire Zsa Zsa before they hire Matheny and I’m okay with that. Just hire someone who may know what the heck they’re doing. How about someone who has managed or played in at least 3 or 4 Big League games?…At this point, I’d be happy with that.
“FWIW, Francona is 65 and retired due to poor health.
Maddon is 70.
Showalter is 68.”At the risk of being overly argumentative, the last three World Series-winning managers were 68, 73, and 65 years young — in reverse chronological order, that is. It wouldn’t be my first choice to pick someone with quite so much life experience behind him…but it beats the heck out of another Marmolian catastrophe. (By “catastrophe,” I mean the entirety of Ollie’s tenure, not 2024, which was a disappointing underachievement but far from a fiasco.)
As for Francona specifically, managers un-retire nearly as often as George Foreman, so there’s still a chance (I’ll put it at 20-25%) we see Tito’s son in a baseball uniform again.
And since when were scouts paying any attention to the time it takes for a Big League manager to bust it out of the box and sprint to 1B? And I don’t care too much if he’s lost a little bat speed in his golden years while he’s swatting fungos to his OF’ers. Just provide me with a field manager who’s actually seen a Big League field or two over the course of his association with the game of baseball. Someone who’s been around long enough to have taken possessesion of the amount of life skills required to interact with players and motivate them to excel.
No argument at all, Bob. It is a good, albeit academic discussion. Other posters, not you, stated a desire to have a younger man in the job than someone who is already beyond regular retirement age.
I just hope we don’t spend the entire season discussing Marmol. He is going to return for 2025, like it or not.
Marmol is the Cardinal version of Rick Renteria. The manager who gets to slog through the rebuild only to get kicked to the curb when the team is ready to win again, which I predict will be the 2027 season. Marmol has two years remaining on his contract which lines up with that.
Im less concerned about Marmol than I am the coaches. They haven’t disclosed those plans. Although it would follow they won’t pay off existing contracts
Bob, you were right that Francona could be had…
The Cincinnati Reds are hiring Terry Francona as their manager, sources tell ESPN. He will come out of retirement one year after stepping away from Cleveland and will take over a young, talented Reds team. @Feinsand was first on the news.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) October 4, 2024
Although it would follow they won’t pay off existing contracts
They could just make them assistants in the FO like Joe McEwing. His contract as bench coach is probably over now, so Mo can get a few new ones.
But I wonder what sense it makes to bring in new coaches now. Bloom will want to bring in a manager for 2026, and any manager of substance will want a say in his coaches. So anybody coming on for this year would be looking at a one year gig. What kind of coaches are you going to get under those circumstances.
We don’t need a new manager for a rebuild but I would still like to see a new hitting coach. Ward doesn’t deserve a job based on our offensive blackout.
I guess Daniel Descalso is in the running for White Sox skipper. Oli could be without his top lieutenant.
Mystifying. You hire a new PBO then let the outgoing guy hang around for another year diddling with your team. Where is the logic in that? Who would sign on for such a plan? It means you spend 2026 undoing what your predecessor has just done or you merely continue on with the same old same old. If Mo has any brilliant new ideas for fixing the Cardinals why does he wait until now to implement them?
Mo carries the axe, Bloom picks the trade return. Why would Bloom undo what he does in 2025?
Mo hired Bloom last season and he won’t be on the sidelines diddling. As the gm-to-be, his voice will be heard.
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