We spoke with St. Louis Cardinals manager Oli Marmol recently about the state of the team now including the progress of Nolan Gorman, challenges with Jordan Walker, the impressive Spring for Joshua Baez and his goals for the 2026 team.<\/p>\n
The St. Louis Cardinals made manager Oli Marmol available to us for over a half-hour late last week which included about a dozen online writers and podcasters representing multiple brands. During that time we and others asked him numerous questions which included the progress (or not) of prospects, the expectations for the pitching staff and what Oli would consider a successful season for 2026. Here\u2019s a summary of most of the questions and a snapshot of his answers to each. He started with an opening statement which included this:<\/p>\n
\u201cOur audience experiences our team\u2026a lot of it through the work that you guys do and I feel like when you put out work\u2026I want to give you guys the opportunity to have direct access\u2026rather than sometimes guessing as to how we\u2019re thinking about things or how I\u2019m thinking about things.\u201d<\/p>\n
How excited are you about the young Cardinals arms you have and how do you balance opportunity with allowing young players with enough runway to make adjustments?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe almost have to take the approach we did with Libby with some of these guys where he wasn\u2019t looking over his shoulder every start trying to figure out if I\u2019m going to make my next one and I think that helped him see it as I have enough of an opportunity\u2026there\u2019s always gonna be urgency. None of these guys are taking the mound thinking\u2026I have plenty of time to figure this out. But, it is nice for them to know that as I\u2019m working towards becoming the best version of myself, I have the ability to make mistakes and then correct them\u2026I really do believe that\u2019s what helped Libby because he had to work through some things last year that weren\u2019t easy and him knowing that if he had a bad outing that he was going to have a bullpen session two days after and be able to work on it and give it another shot\u2026I think when you look at someone like Leahy who I really do want to see in the rotation because I think he can fit a little bit of what Libby did where because of how diligent he is with it and I mean when I say this dude is thoughtful in his preparation\u2026it\u2019s impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
What type of things have you been doing with Nolan Gorman that have led to less strikeouts and better at-bats?<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s an interesting case because there has been opportunity, but it has been broken up at times because of having to give others opportunity\u2026and bounce back and forth there based on having Arenado here and some others. It hasn\u2019t panned out exactly the way you would want it laid out, but it has been broken up by injury\u2026just having that real opportunity where it\u2019s not choppy and you can see what he\u2019s capable of doing. When you talk about what we\u2019re doing with him and what he\u2019s doing in order to prevent that from changing\u2026more contact, not doing that at the expense of bat speed. You have to start somewhere and that\u2019s why I wanted to lay that out last year\u2026.the bat speed is going to drop a little bit while we try to figure out how to get him through the zone and impacting the baseball at a higher rate. We saw bat speed drop. We saw contact go up. As he gets comfortable with that new move, then that allows for him to make more contact while still impacting the baseball\u2026that\u2019s what we\u2019re seeing in Spring. It is more walks, more contact, but it\u2019s not at the expense of him swinging the way he wants to swing\u2026the counting stats\u2026I don\u2019t look at it in Spring as much\u2026because you\u2019re looking under the hood at the things you name that lead to sustainable success\u2026are you controlling the strike zone? When you swing, are you making contact and are you hitting it hard?\u2026You can be fooled in Spring Training by someone that has really good numbers, but it\u2019s not sustainable.\u201d<\/p>\n
We know this is a different type of year and you\u2019ll try to win every game, but how will you balance that with player development?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be tough, but that\u2019s part of the gig. If we\u2019re trying to make decisions based on\u2026we need to look long term, but we\u2019re not giving anything away today. I think that\u2019s how you build a winning culture\u2026when I was coming up through the minor leagues\u2026all the way through. We always talked about developing winning players. When we think about this group that is young and hungry\u2026you\u2019re going to have times where you have to make decisions that isn\u2019t strictly to win that game, but it is to teach them what winning habits\u2026look like. The goal is you do that often enough, then you just start winning. We could put a timeline on this and say\u2026we\u2019re gonna be good in 2028 or 2029\u2026(but) try to be good today. I don\u2019t know the timeline\u2026these guys may come out and surprise the heck out of people\u2026they may not. We\u2019ll find out a lot about who can and who can\u2019t. Our job is to create a framework for them to operate in, do it really well\u2026hold them accountable and hold our staff accountable to it and move this thing as quick as possible in the right direction\u2026our staff is in the mindset that it\u2019s today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Who are some prospects that have really impressed you this Spring behind the scenes?<\/p>\n
\u201cI think you would agree with\u2026Baez\u2026that was fun to watch and not just because of the skill set. His demeanor\u2026sometimes guys come up here and you can tell that they are putting on a front as far as looking confident when they\u2019re really spinning inside and they\u2019re just trying to control it. This dude had a quiet confidence to him that was pretty impressive. The way he carried himself in the clubhouse was really good. The way he communicated with the staff was really good\u2026his overall presence on the field is felt. That\u2019s not always the case. He\u2019s one of the ones that you can get pretty excited about what\u2019s to come\u2026and the way he\u2019s working now\u2026there\u2019s an urgency to it. He knows it\u2019s close.<\/p>\n
What about the issues with Jordan Walker?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been one that\u2026keeps us up at night. We have to figure it out. When I say I\u2019m committed to it, I need to think of a stronger word to make sure that this dude figures it out\u2026with us\u2026because there\u2019s a real skill set there, but I do feel like we missed some time in getting to where we\u2019re at now. I wished we would have gotten to this point sooner. What I mean by that where there\u2019s real vulnerability of what has actually happened\u2026how do we feel\u2026how are we gonna get on the other side of this to create real change\u2026not just say we\u2019re working on something, (but) six months later it looks very similar. I feel like we\u2019re finally at a point where that\u2019s happening. It could be a month before we feel good about it\u2026it could be three months before we feel good about it\u2026I may feel good about it in 3 hours\u2026.I don\u2019t know. I like where we\u2019re at with what\u2019s taking place. There\u2019s a real responsibility on both ends here\u2026on mine, on Brownie and that whole hitting department\u2026to unlock what he\u2019s capable of\u2026and there\u2019s real responsibility on (Jordan\u2019s) end, too\u2026of carrying the work that he\u2019s doing into the game. We\u2019re doing everything possible for that to be the case\u2026but this is one that has not gone well and we need it to go well. All hands on deck for this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big thanks to Oli Marmol and the St. Louis Cardinals for allowing us direct access. We\u2019re assured that this will happen again more frequently moving forward so we can get the thought process of the President of Baseball Operations and his team and the manager as they navigate the St. Louis Cardinals forward through this rebuild of what we hope will be a team that returns to its winning ways sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We spoke with St. Louis Cardinals manager Oli Marmol recently about the state of the team now including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,65076,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-629280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-st-louis-cardinals-analysis","14":"tag-stlouis","15":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116247909010454525","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}