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To Brian’s point above, let’s follow how this all plays out.
If we keep Marmol and the team does better, Bloom is a hero. Marmol gets some credit. Bill saves some money not paying a new manager. Everyone wins.
If we keep Marmol and the team again finishes around .500, Bloom can fire Marmol. Bill saves money. Bloom and Bill win.
If we keep Marmol and the team really tanks, Bloom can fire Marmol earlier. Bill still saves money. Bloom still is seen as the good guy. Bill takes it on the chin some as the rhetoric will be that he chose to keep Marmol, but in the end he still saves money. Bloom wins and Bill comes out even.
Thus, no poor outcome for Bill/Bloom if they keep Marmol.
If they fire Marmol and the team does a lot better, Bloom and the new manager are heroes. Bill gets partial credit for the turnaround but has to spend extra money. Bloom wins. Bill comes out even.
If they fire Marmol and stay around .500, unless notable development is noticed to be exciting, fans complain that it’s same old same old and Bloom and Bill plus the new manager all get partial blame. Everyone probably loses.
If they fire Marmol and get worse, not only does everyone lose, but now they look completely incompetent for downgrading managers.
Given those scenarios, my guess is they keep Marmol.
jnevel, that is a clear way to outline the situation, as every possible case is covered. Team better, same or worse, with or without Marmol. Six possibilities.
It would be fun to try to apply odds to those six. That is where folks would disagree, I suspect.
Excellent post jnevel. Logic says that Marmol returns for 2026.
So we are going to hire Skip Schumaker or Yadier Molina or Albert Pujols or promote Daniel Descalso and all of sudden Busch Stadium is going to be packed with 45k in attendance each night? I don’t think so, especially if we are still rolling out a similar roster as this year.
Bloom is a bit of a mystery but everything I have read about the guy tells me that the chances of him going on a free agent signing splurge (assuming BDW would let him) is very low. That is not his style. I think he is going to be very methodical and patient with this rebuild and it will be 2 or 3 more years before we are contenders again. Having a shiny new manager will make people feel good for a little while until reality hits.
The one scenario that is entirely certain is that if they keep the current Cardinal manager, the degree of resentment among fans increases. Attendance continues to suffer and Willie Jr. doesn’t sell enough hot dogs and beer to make him happy. If they place the manager into the soup line, fans will be happy and they’ll buy a ticket. And if they’re hungry and thirsty, they’ll buy a beer and a hot dog and Willie Jr. will be happy.
I think the fans will be happy when the team is winning. Period. Regardless of the manager. Going 81-81 under a new manager with a AAAA roster isn’t going to make anyone happy.
If Marmols salary is a difference maker, then ya, we likely get more of the same.
This is where your outcomes went off track for me J. If you pay two Marmols next season, how much is that amount? I’m reading this as if we can’t afford two Marmols, one canned, one active.
What are you looking at here for two Marmols? 10mil? More? It sounds like a major decision, about peanuts, but I’ve been wrong before.
Some good thoughts. Nice work jnevel. The lower risk option for management is to keep Marmol and evaluate the manager decision in 2026. Firing him after this year and bringing in a new guy puts the club at a lot of risk – the new guy would have to produce or you have just lost one of your options to bring back accountability to the fans.
This makes it clear cut to me. Ollie will get another year. The risk shifts from management to him.
Trying to manage better, and failing, is not a negative for me. Thank you for trying (if you ever do again Bill).
Doms’ “resentment” assumption would be me, for Bill caving, and going with more of the same.
Show me a Schildt type. Someone who didn’t accept more of the same. My leash for more of the same, more of Marmol/Mo, is extremely short.
While $5-$10 million isn’t chump change, I agree Bill can afford it without it damaging his retirement any. The point is more about the narrative. Unless the team truly believes it is ready to be good in 2026, the narrative will be bad for Bloom and potentially the new manager. And sure, maybe a new manager creates some fan excitement, but how long will that really last if the team continues to be mediocre? A month maybe?
To me, the better bet is either Marmol becomes hero or goat – more likely goat. Then he gets fired and replaced at a time the team has a better chance to compete. That buys the team a year of rebuilding time and doesn’t saddle any new manager with past sins. And if Marmol does go out and wins with these guys, more power to him. He will have earned a 2-year extension.
“Bills bottom line is determined by attendance, not the managers salary, or eating a year of it” – Bling
Does anybody believe Marmol is good at developing players?
Is he good at instilling the fundamentals?
Is he good at developing a winning culture?
If not, the Cardinals should replace him.
Generally, the new front office guy gets to pick his manager. Most teams don’t have managers serve their lame duck year. My guess is the Cardinals keep hiring guys with no experience so they don’t have to pay them, so I don’t think they will be eating that much money.
If Marmol continues signing puppet level contracts, he may get an extension.
So in the past 18 months Bill has spent 2mil on Maton, since Middleton two offseasons ago, and Bill just sold off 6.5mil of deadline trade chips from our opening day budget.
Poor Bill can’t afford two managers salaries. But I’m glad for him that he has those willing to defend his frugalness (quitting his club).
Poor Bill deserves his attendance drop.
Poor Bill can’t afford two managers salaries. But I’m glad for him that he has those willing to defend his frugalness (quitting his club).
Poor Bill deserves his attendance.
Like I said I don’t think paying two managers is the biggest issue here. It is having a competetive roster than can win in 2026 that matters. In what universe does anyone think we are going to have a competetive roster next year without an increase in payroll? Has Bloom’s magic already created a booming pipeline of talent? Do we abandon the rebuild before Bloom has the curtains measured and go into Steve Cohen mode?
In my opinion, we as fans know very little about Marmol. Most of what he does or doesn’t do occurs behind the scenes. I have been watching him for 3 seasons and here are the only things I feel like I know to be true (and I’m sure some of you may even disagree with my truths):
– He is young for a manager, really young.
– He is decent at handling the media. But he had a real gaffe moment with O’Neil a couple years back.
– He is quick tempered and relatively aggressive although that doesn’t always show up on the base paths. It does show up some in his lineups though where he more frequently prioritizes offense to defense, although some of this is based on roster construction.
– He is the best manager of the bullpen I’ve seen since at least Whitey. Infinitely better than Matheney and significantly better than Schildt.
– He has led several mediocre rosters to several mediocre records.
– The team generally has not improved under his direction. While there are individual silver linings and the fact that payrolls have declined, ultimately we want to see more positives than negatives. I don’t think that has been the case.
That’s it. I don’t really have a feel for whether the players like him or respect him or play extra hard for him. I can’t say how well he develops or doesn’t develop others or how well he coaches the fundamentals. Only insiders know these things. And insiders get to make the decision.
Does anybody know Mo’s last official day as a Cardinal employee?
Or Bloom’s first official day as POBO, or whatever he is going to be called?
That is a very fair assessment jnevel. I can’t argue with much of that.
My big picture macro view is that to have a successful big league baseball team requires a LOT of things to happen. There are many many moving parts and cogs on the wheel. While obviously important a manager is only one cog. Payroll size, payroll efficeincy, roster building, drafting, developing, are all things that happen outside the purvue of the manager for the most part. What the manager does is take the roster he is given and tries to get the most out of it. Some are better at it than others but it takes more than a good manager to have a successful club.
Here’s my best guess in regards to the truth about the current Cardinal manager…Very few if any of the players he has managed in his tenure as the Redbird manager genuinely respect him. And very few if any of the players he has managed would want to play on a team that he managed again. They won’t have to worry about that though because my last thought about him is not a guess…One thing that I’m entirely certain of is that he will never again manage another Big League team once the Cardinals ship him off.
My sense of Marmol’s relationship with the players is a little different. From the few times you got a shot at the dugout on TV, and even fewer times I see a live game, I get the sense the players like Marmol, and he has a good relationship with them. The O’Neill fiasco was a notable exception, but is now water under the bridge.
I am not real big on his management of pitching staffs. Yeah, he is better than Matheny. Not sure about better than Shildt though.
The whole ordeal of firing Shildt and elevating Marmol was weird. We had a veteran team going in to 2022 and management brought this guy in who was about the same age as some of the players, and younger than a couple of them. Just a crazy deal and the whole “philosophical differences” bit is a stale joke now.
I hope whenever Bloom makes changes the reasons are clear and articulated, not a cerebral sounding code phrase like we saw with Shildt’s departure.
1tough said:
One thing that I’m entirely certain of is that he will never again manage another Big League team once the Cardinals ship him off.
It is just me, but one thing I don’t do is say words like “never” (or “always”) about anyone, especially a person who is not yet 40 years of age. Oli is likely to outlive pretty much all of us, so we may not know what eventually happens with him!
I’m so sure that I’ll bet a dollar…
Edit…A division ll girls fast pitch softball team maybe, but he’ll never occupy the top step of a Big League dugout after he waves goodbye to StL. Finito and done.
Well easy decision for me. If im a new guy in this situation with a team that has struggled and has a fan attendance problem, i cant have someone who i didnt choose help write my beginning in this organization. Unless hes really impressed by marmol but if he is then i doubt hes really going to be any difference maker anyway. Now people on here talk about well if we arent going to compete next season then no need. Well now i hate the wild card so being 4 games out of the last one doesnt excite nor would getting it but a lot of people on here would be going crazy if the cards went 10-4 and got it. So no reason to think the cardinals at worse would be in the same situation next year. So assuming cards dont make a mad dash this year, s new manager could be the difference when its the difference of just a few games. Heck a new manager doesnt always have to be that much better to do that, just the change can bring new excitement. So then if u r thinking of 27 as the season where stuff could really happen, you have this new coach and team that just bonded and had a playoff making season. More excitement would be generated, i guarantee a lot of fans not at the stadium now would be there. I just dont think any of those fans would be the same excited if it was marmol still coaching regardless of what he would do next season. The perception of a team trying new things appears as trying to win vs a team that isnt trying new things. To me its pretty simple. Get rid of marmol immediately if you want to appear as trying to do something. Keep marmol if u are still just doing as always, living on hope.
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