Yadier Molina Returns To St. Louis Cardinals Dugout TONIGHT! Here’s Why:

Yadier Molina Returns To St. Louis Cardinals Dugout TONIGHT! Here’s Why:

[Music] What’s going on everyone and welcome in to this edition of Bshave Daily. Brendan Schaefer with you. It is Friday, August 6, 2025. Talking some St. Louis Cardinals baseball. After the off day on Thursday, the Cardinals return to Bush Stadium this evening. They’ll be taking on the Cubs, which should be a fun weekend series that was made even a little bit more interesting by some news that dropped just a little bit ago on Friday early afternoon. Yadier Molina, former Cardinal great, will be in the dugout in uniform on the Cardinal side for Friday night and Saturday night’s game. This is something that came about due to the way it was described by Oliver Marl. Yachti was in town. He was going to be in town and this was known some time ago. Uh heard the way that Ollie described it on 101 ESPN. He had a great interview with Brandon Kylie and Alex Ferrario earlier today. If you guys missed that, I do recommend you check that out from BK and Ferrario. But Oie described that it was known for a couple of months that Yachti was going to be in town for this weekend and he had texted Olly to let him know that. And then as it got a little bit closer, texted him again kind of saying, “Hey, would love to meet up.” And then the idea was floated I I think is the way that it was described by Ollie on that show anyway was that Ollie was texted along with John Mo by Yachti to say, “Hey, would love to be able to be in uniform, spend some time with the guys this weekend that are going to be in town.” And Oie said, he responded right away and said, “Would love it.” And so that’s what’s going to happen tonight. Cardinals Cubs on Friday and then it’s a night game as well on Saturday. A weekend of night games with some national television uh exposure for this Cards Cubs rivalry. So, how about that? Yadier Molina in town and going to be uh passing on some wisdom perhaps and uh being involved with things going on down at Bush Stadium. Let me know in the comments what you think about that because uh the way that Oie describes it I think makes a lot of sense is that even if it’s just for 48 hours it’s a great thing to have somebody with Yachti’s experience his wisdom to impart and having him around said that the one thing that he would love to see kind of rub off on the players is just the dedication and the work ethic that Yadier Molina has and if he can say a few words to the guys that he runs into in that clubhouse and in that dugout during the next couple of nights that happen to Dick. Well, that would be just fantastic. Obviously, a big topic of conversation, I think, from the outside when this news gets announced is the notion of, well, you know, there’s kind of this conversation that Yadier Molina wants to get into managing someday at the major league level. And of course, he’d love nothing more than to be the Cardinals manager. Yadier Molina is coming into town, going to stand right there next to the current Cardinals manager in the dugout for these games. Okay. Does that get a little bit awkward? Does that uh bring up some of these uncomfortable topics if you’re all over normal? And to BK’s credit on their show, he asked him right about it and said, you know, this is something that people are going to be talking about. And all he says, yep, nothing you can do about that. But the decision shouldn’t be made based on my ego or my uh lack of self-esteem if that were the case to avoid a situation like this because it’s something that can help our team something that can help the organization something that can help the players to have exposure to Yottier Molina to have his presence around the club and he’s got a great relationship with Yachti and said that there was just not a second thought about the idea that he would love to have him and that’s always been an open invite for Yachti to be involved as involved as he wants to be and and can be with his busy life. And so when the opportunity came up, that’s not the thing that Oliver Marl was thinking about. I thought Oie nailed the interview, by the way, when he talked with the guys there on 101 ESPN. Again, couldn’t recommend more going back to listen to that because it is it can be an uncomfortable topic when you know what’s out there, right? You know the chatter, you understand the way that people perceive maybe the situation. Okay, your current boss that hired you and gave you the job after, you know, letting go of a manager who was successful here in Mike Schil and he’s gone on to be successful elsewhere, but that guy’s not going to be the boss next year. That guy, John Mosak, is not going to be in charge beyond the next couple of months. And so you’re wondering, okay, what’s the relationship with the new guy? Does the new guy want to bring in his own guy? And like that would kind of be a question of itself is yes, Yadier Molina has that connection to the Cardinal organization, but he doesn’t have that connection to High and Bloom. So even if there was to be a managerial change at some point, would it just be automatic? I think in the minds of a lot of fans, well, Yachti’s a great Cardinal. He he knows the game so well. He he approached it from the catcher position and so obviously he would be the guy to take over. I don’t know if it’s that simple, but I also don’t know that the job is coming open, right? I mean, we just don’t know the effect of that relationship between Heiml Bloom and Oliver Marl, but Molly had nothing but good things to say about the interactions he’s had with Heim Bloom to this point. And even though it is kind of this, I guess in in in public topics of conversation, it’s more of a cloud hanging over the situation. But I believe Oy Marmal when he says that, you know, it’s not something that he is thinking about. He’s operating under the under the guise of, hey, I have to do the best job that I can to help the Cardinals move forward every single day. And if Yadier Molina can be around, it’s not about me. It’s not about, you know, who’s going to be the manager someday. In fact, Ollie rattled off a number of he said, “Hey, Skip Schumacher was my bench coach. He could be this manager in St. Louis and he would do a great job and Albert Puhol would do a great job and Yadier Molina would do a great job. Daniel Duscowso could do this job.” And so, if I’m meant to have this job, I’m going to have it. If I’m not, I’m not, I believe, was what Holly said in the interview. And so, it’s one of those things where I I genuinely believe in when he is approaching it from a perspective of, hey, I want to do the things that are best for the St. Cardinals and and best for our players and moving the organization forward. That’s what he’s doing. I love it that Oie Marvel does some of these types of interviews because when you’re seeing a guy and this is true of any manager in baseball. It’s not just Ollie Marvel that this is specific to. This was specific to Mike Matheni. This was was true of Mike Schult. It’s true of Oliver Marl and it would be true about 29 other managers across Major League Baseball. We’re just exposed more to what we see from the local manager because that’s what everybody watching this video follows. They follow the Cardinals and they’re a Cardinals fan. But regardless of who it is, when you’re in the heat of battle and you’re 10 minutes after a game walking to a podium to be asked about why you lost four to three to a rival team and and why so and so blew it in the ninth inning and why did you pitch this guy and why didn’t you pinch it for that guy, there’s always going to be a different energy to that than the type of energy that an Oliver Marl could display in a radio interview sometime in the afternoon or the energy that he can display, the personality that he can display under that setting. And so I think people get a really good feel for when you’re, you know, taking in some of that that outside media, what Oliver Marl is all about. and he says this all the time when you spend a little bit of time with him, which obviously a lot of Cardinals fans do not get the opportunity to do, but you get to know more about what he’s all about and the way he thinks and the way he approaches not only the game, but just kind of life in general, how he views the opportunity that he has to be the Cardinals manager, and you kind of get a better sense for what he’s all about than you necessarily would in a postgame interview setting after a tough loss or even after a close win when the adrenaline is still high. So I I think it’s been a really uh really savvy approach that Oliver Marl has taken and this is something that you know I guess I can’t remember to past seasons the extent to which these types of things took place with him. But like even going back to spring training doing uh radio interviews there from the the Cardinals patio next to the clubhouse at the picnic tables um with the the the 101 show the morning after that was there on site. He goes on the gas house gang every Tuesday. He’s doing some of those things, I think, as a a way to kind of let fans have a have a glimpse that, hey, I’m a real guy. I’m a person. I am I am I like to have fun. I like to crack jokes. Um, it’s good to see when when he’s on those types of shows and puts on the, you know, the text line is right in front of him so he sees what people are putting on there and, you know, you just get a feel for the personhood of somebody. And like I’ve continued to say, I believe that Oliver Marmal with with some tweaks to the roster, which has to come from the front office, right? He’s not somebody that can control those things. I think he would be a really effective manager for a a roster that that fits together like a puzzle a little bit better than this card current Cardinals roster does. Now, there’s something to be said for elevating the players that you have, and that’s obviously something that that he strives to do. Look, I don’t think he’d be inviting Oliver Marvel, excuse me, inviting Gottier Molina into the into the clubhouse setting and into the dugout setting if he didn’t understand that, hey, that’s something that can help our players. That can elevate our team and we want to win. We want to go out there and win every single game regardless of, you know, whether our our roster is as as good as the Yankees roster or as good as the Dodgers roster or as well balanced on our bench as somebody else’s roster might be. You’re going out there to try to do a job and to win games. And so I just think this is a really compelling angle. I I was not necessarily looking to feed into maybe the controversial angle of it when I just simply tweeted out that, oh hey, this is something that feels notable. When I saw Derek Gould share the news on social media earlier today, had one commenter kind of come back at me and say, what do you mean by that? Said, well, I mean the most recognizable living Cardinal is going to be in the dugout for the next couple of days. And I would say that’s probably true. Yadier Molina in terms of recognition by fans and just understanding he wasn’t as great of a player maybe as as Albert Buhols who was one of the greatest players of all time. Molina one of the greatest catchers of all time though and I think recognition of what he was to the Cardinals organization for so long and he never left. He was here the whole way through. Um I I I don’t think that it’s a stretch to say hey this is notable. It doesn’t mean that, oh, he’s taking Oi Marmal’s job because again, Ollie Marl was the guy who um more than rubber stamped him being here this weekend. He was encouraging it. He was um all about it. It sounds like kind of with that text thread, right? It’s Yachti sends a text, hey Mo and Ollie, what do you guys think about this? And all it like responds back before Mo can even say something, which of course I don’t think of any reason that Mosa would have to say, you know, don’t do this. It’s kind of that LZ fair attitude that I’ve talked about that I think is permeating a little bit when it comes to John Mosa the last couple of months. Um whereas in in in previous years he might have been more hands-on with certain things. Um you know maybe you maybe you scratch and claw with certain roster moves to try to turn things through more so than you might in the last couple of months where the perception is h you know we’re not going anywhere anyway. Again, hopefully that’s not the way that he is operating, but it’s kind of the argument that I’ve made when it comes to to Miles Michaels and and the the idea that look, Kyle Ley is somebody that I think right away should be right now stretched out to become a starter. By the way, I I keep hyping up this interview that Oi did with BK, but they asked about that as well. Is Ley somebody that you’d look to stretch out? And they all gave an interesting answer to that. He said, “We kind of already have an understanding for how that might play if he’s going to stretch out to be somebody compu contending for our organization as a starter in 2026. And it’s not necessarily more that we would need to see to believe that that could be a possibility for his future.” Um, and he mentioned Matthew Liberator actually as a guy like if they have to manage his workload, could they do some piggybacking when it comes to Kyle Ley and stretching him out that way down the stretch? Maybe something that could be in consideration. Um but he did not approach a Miles Michael angle to that which is understandable. Um Miles Michael was actually on the morning show on 101 ESPN today and was you know kind of asked about the way that they approached it was hey there’s guys on the text line that are kind of texting in and saying things. Um would you like to hear their questions? And Miles said yeah I’m game. And Miles is another guy who again you might not like his pitching. You might not think that he’s been uh worth the contract or consistent enough. And I think that’s all reasonable to believe and it’s it’s arguably very true with the numbers he’s put up the last couple of years. Um but you can’t say that he’s not game to, you know, hear the criticism and respond to it. And that’s exactly what happened on their show this morning on TMA. He was a guest of theirs and one of the texters that said, “Do you feel bad about taking a roster spot from a younger player?” He kind of thought about it and and you know, ultimately said, “No, I don’t feel bad. Their time’s going to come and and you know, they’re going to continue to gain experience down there.” Um, Cardinals do have a lot of injuries in TripleA this year when it comes to like the pitching prospects that you would have thought could be contending for some some opportunities right now. But just interesting to hear kind of his perspective on that. He did say, “Hey, they’re going to pay me if if I’m pitching and they’re going to pay me if I’m not pitching.” And so, you know, if they make a decision to go a different direction, I think he’s well aware that he still gets paid for that. Um, it was interesting to hear from uh Serving It Up, the podcast that The Cat does with some of the former Cardinals like Matt Holiday and Lance Land. Lance Lynn um had a clip that was posted by STL Sports Central talking about the Miles Michael situation and and said, you know, if it comes to a point in time where he’s not consistently performing, do you consider a move to the bullpen and and just say that, you know, this is something that we need to do to be able to get a look for some younger guys? And Lance thought maybe Miles would be amanable to that. I think, you know, from an egoless perspective, just go out there and do your best. You’re getting paid to do a job. I would like to think that Miles would be open to it as well, but it does not seem like based on all these answers on that afternoon show with Brain and Kylie today that that’s something that is at least top of mind or at least something that they are, you know, ready to to bring up unprovoked because the question that was asked was more about Kyle Lehey and not anything to do with, okay, how would you get Kyle Ley into the rotation? Could it be the Michael spot? I wrote about this for SDL Sports Central yesterday. You can go check out their website if you would like to read more on my kind of deepest, darkest thoughts about that. It’s not anything that says, you know, Miles Michaels is a bad guy, but right now he’s been an inconsistent pitcher. And I do think from an innings perspective, you get Kyle Lehey closer to 90 100 innings this year. Um, as he is sharper right now than he was in the middle of the year when he had been overworked. Um, I think he’s in a place where he would be able to handle that type of workload and that might get him in a better position for such a an opportunity in 2026. So, some of the things that we’d be thinking about. One more thing though before we get out of here, I want to mention Quinn Matthews. It was fantastic last night for the AAA Memphis Redbirds uh in a game that aired actually on FanDuel Sports Midwest because the Cardinals were off. I thought that was a great marketing opportunity uh to allow fans on a on a regional basis to get a longer look at the the guys coming up in the Cardinals organization there in AAA. The Red Birds won that game over Durham 3 to one and Quinn Matthews went seven strong innings allowing just two hits, one walk, no runs, and had nine strikeouts. His velocity has been down recently, but it was it was up a tick in the later innings last night in the close to the mid90s range. And so, has he been able to toggle the velocity to figure out kind of, you know, what it is that right now he’s not? Again, not to say there’s an injury, but we know he was dealing with shoulder stuff that put him on the IIL earlier in the season. And guys go through this where you might say, well, normally the velocity I throw is 95. Right now it’s low 90s, and I can’t articulate why that is. Um, but you got to make sure you’re staying within your mechanics and doing everything that can keep you healthy. And then you learn to pitch at a lower velocity, which is something that, you know, it seems like last night Quinn Matthews was able to do and and it was a very effective outing, arguably his best of the season. And so now we’ve been talking about JJ Weatherhold. Do you start to wonder about Quinn Matthews potentially being somebody that could join the Cardinals at the big league level sometime this year? Um, I’ll reiterate the same thing that I have said when it comes to JJ. It’s the idea that you’re not going to exhaust his rookie eligibility. And I’ve been trying to explain this. I know that there’s a lot of um confusion, I guess would be the word, about this topic because I still have people replying to me on Twitter and saying, “Oh, you can’t you can’t do that because you don’t want to lose a year of service time.” It’s not about the service time with Quinn Matthews or with JJ Weatherhold. What it’s about is rookie eligibility. So, for a hitter, you have to have fewer than 130 at bats and fewer than 45 days on the big league active roster in a prior season in order to be rookie eligible for that season, which would be 2026 in this case. And so, for the Cardinals, if you wait till mid or late August, whatever the the exact date is that signals fewer than 45 days left in the season, that would be the point at which I would advocate if you’re going to bring up Weather Holt, that would be when you do it and not before because you don’t want to lose his rookie eligibility for next year. It’s not that they gain or lose a year of service time based on that distinction. It’s that if he is rookie eligible, he’s eligible for rookie of the year. And if he wins that award after being on the active roster in a way that doesn’t gain service time in 2026, like before they made this rule about the rookie of the year, you get a draft pick. That’s kind of what I’m trying to describe and lay out for people. I know I’ve done it before, but for people that maybe don’t know, clearly there are people who still don’t understand the distinction. The way that it works is if you don’t gain their service time and and wait till like April 21st to bring up a guy to get an extra year of service time, if you bring him up at the very beginning of the season and he wins rookie of the year, your organization gets a compensation draft pick between like the first and second rounds. It’s a really big deal. You can you can add a really significant player and prospect in that process. And so you’re that’s the way you would have to approach it with Weatherhold. If you’re going to bring him up at all, you do have to wait a little bit because you want to ensure that he gets that opportunity. And it’s not gaming service time because the service time has no impact on if he comes up this late August or September or he does it day one of next season. It’s the same number of years of team control. And the same would be true for Quinn Matthews. For pitchers, you got to throw fewer than 50 innings and it’s that 45 days on the active roster. So in both cases, if they think there’s an opportunity and Quinn’s ready, which again, I wouldn’t be opposed to it. I don’t think you have to say, “Well, Quint Matthews needs to get his ERA down to 2.9 for the season or, you know, he shouldn’t be somebody the Cardinals consider.” If he’s locked in right now, it shouldn’t matter that he was struggling a month ago or that his velocity was lower two weeks ago. If he’s locked in right now and he looks like an opportunity in the big league rotation is something that whether he pitches well, whether he struggles in those couple of spots in September, it’s something that can benefit him for next year or benefit him going into the offseason where he goes, “Okay, I got my ass kicked.” Like, I have to learn from that experience and here’s here’s the things I need to work on coming into spring training next year so that I’m more ready for when that opportunity arrives. Once again, I I think that can only be a positive if they think he’s ready. And I think mentality wise, Quinn Matthews is a dog. I think he’s somebody that if he did get beat around a little bit in the big leagues, he’s somebody that that’s not going to affect him long term, that’s going to maybe pour into what he does and the work that he puts in, but I think that could only be a positive. And so if he is demonstrating right now that he’s kind of at the top of his game and even if that velocity is not where we are used to seeing it for whatever reason, as long as he’s physically healthy, that’s something that I think should be interesting to consider as well. Um, but again, Cardinals are 500 right now. I know the playoffs is a long shot, but as as uh Miles Michael has told TMA this morning, really, you’re you know, you’re two good weeks from suddenly being back into a conversation. I know that nobody listening or watching this video expects that of the Cardinals right now. But it’s not false. It’s not wrong to say that, you know, if you go two weeks and you let’s say 12 games, you rattle off at 10 and two, all of a sudden, I mean, it’s completely different conversation. And so even though we don’t expect the 10-2 to come, we don’t expect that run from the Cardinals based on where they’re at, there is no reason not to continue pursuing that in my opinion with the roster moves and with the way that the team is being managed from a front office perspective. And surely that’s what’s happening too in the dugout with with the daily lineup perspective. And it’s not that, you know, Ollie Marvel doesn’t want to give runway to certain guys. It’s they have too many dudes. It’s it’s the same conversation we’ve been having all season. they haven’t been able to differentiate one from another, especially when it comes to that crop of left-handed bats. The one guy that in in the mind of the the organization and and Oliver Marl that has emerged is Alec Berles. You know, he didn’t get daily opportunity at the beginning of the season. He put in the work to show that like when my my name is called, I’m going to be the most productive bat on this team. And now he’s a middle lineup guy for them. And that’s not somebody that’s going to be part of a rotation where you take him out. Um it’s the big leagues. All he always likes to say, there’s no level higher than this one. And so when you’re producing the way that Berles has, you know, that’s the way that it looks. Does it change if his production changes? It should. They should be adaptable to what that looks like. And it’s not like you you pull a guy after an 0 for four or two of those in a row. But like a Brendan Donovan right now is has been struggling. Do they consider dropping him from the leadoff spot? Like those are the things that when something goes on for weeks at a time, do you adjust? That’s all part of the game, right? You have to decide where to be stubborn and where to be, you know, willing to adapt and willing to make adjustments if there are better options for a certain role on the team. And so those are all things that are happening with an eye on development, with an eye on evaluation, but also with an eye on being as competitive as he can day in and day out. And that’s exactly what the Cardinals will look to do tonight when they have Michael McGrevy taking them out against the Cubs. And that’s right, Yachti will be back. He will be in the dugout. So let me know in the comments section below what you think of that and what you think of the show, any uh feedback that you would like to provide to me as trying to introduce more of a video element to B Shave Daily. So if you’re listening on Spotify, uh check it out on YouTube and subscribe to the YouTube channel. Brendan Schaefer, St. Louis Cardinals writer. And if you enjoy the content, want to continue to support me and all the work that we’re doing here, uh maybe you check out the channel membership below. That link is in the video description. And uh for tier 2 of the YouTube membership, there is a Discord component with the private group chat there. So, if you’d like to know anything more about anything that we talked about here today, I’m always available at Bshaper12 on Twitter. You can shoot me a direct message and I will try to get back to you and sift through some of the uh the bot messages that come into the other folder. Um, if I don’t get to you right away, that’s probably why. But always available if you guys would like to talk or you can shoot a tweet at me publicly and uh I can let you know anything that you want to know. But I appreciate you guys as always for tuning in. We will talk to you next time on Bshave Daily. Peace.

Former St. Louis Cardinals great Yadier Molina will be in uniform and in the Cardinals dugout tonight and Saturday night as the Cards take on the Chicago Cubs at Busch Stadium. How did this come to be and what did Oliver Marmol think of the opportunity–and why it was so important?

And based on his response to a question from Brandon Kiley on 101 ESPN today, clearly Marmol is aware of the memes that will come about as a result of this–but he was clear that having an ego about this is the last thing on his mind when it comes to the reasoning behind why it’s so important to have Yadi around this Cardinals team.

Plus, Quinn Mathews was excellent on Thursday night for AAA Memphis. When could we see him in St. Louis? I’ll explain why his situation mirrors JJ Wetherholt.

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