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.
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 are a summary of all the questions and a snapshot of his answers to each. He started with an opening statement which included this:
“Our audience experiences our team…a lot of it through the work that you guys do and I feel like when you put out work…I want to give you guys the opportunity to have direct access…rather than sometimes guessing as to how we’re thinking about things or how I’m thinking about things.”
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?
“We almost have to take the approach we did with Libby with some of these guys where he wasn’t looking over his shoulder every start trying to figure out if I’m going to make my next one and I think that helped him see it as I have enough of an opportunity…there’s always gonna be urgency. None of these guys are taking the mound thinking…I have plenty of time to figure this out. But, it is nice for them to know that as I’m working towards becoming the best version of myself, I have the ability to make mistakes and then correct them…I really do believe that’s what helped Libby because he had to work through some things last year that weren’t 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…I 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…it’s impressive.”
What type of things have you been doing with Nolan Gorman that have led to less strikeouts and better at-bats?
“He’s an interesting case because there has been opportunity, but it has been broken up at times because of having to give others opportunity…and bounce back and forth there based on having Arenado here and some others. It hasn’t panned out exactly the way you would want it laid out, but it has been broken up by injury…just having that real opportunity where it’s not choppy and you can see what he’s capable of doing. When you talk about what we’re doing with him and what he’s doing in order to prevent that from changing…more contact, not doing that at the expense of bat speed. You have to start somewhere and that’s why I wanted to lay that out last year….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…that’s what we’re seeing in Spring. It is more walks, more contact, but it’s not at the expense of him swinging the way he wants to swing…the counting stats…I don’t look at it in Spring as much…because you’re looking under the hood at the things you name that lead to sustainable success…are you controlling the strike zone? When you swing, are you making contact and are you hitting it hard?…You can be fooled in Spring Training by someone that has really good numbers, but it’s not sustainable.”
We know this is a different type of year and you’ll try to win every game, but how will you balance that with player development?
“It’s gonna be tough, but that’s part of the gig. If we’re trying to make decisions based on…we need to look long term, but we’re not giving anything away today. I think that’s how you build a winning culture…when I was coming up through the minor leagues…all the way through. We always talked about developing winning players. When we think about this group that is young and hungry…you’re going to have times where you have to make decisions that isn’t strictly to win that game, but it is to teach them what winning habits…look like. The goal is you do that often enough, then you just start winning. We could put a timeline on this and say…we’re gonna be good in 2028 or 2029…(but) try to be good today. I don’t know the timeline…these guys may come out and surprise the heck out of people…they may not. We’ll find out a lot about who can and who can’t. Our job is to create a framework for them to operate in, do it really well…hold them accountable and hold our staff accountable to it and move this thing as quick as possible in the right direction…our staff is in the mindset that it’s today.”
Who are some prospects that have really impressed you this Spring behind the scenes?
“I think you would agree with…Baez…that was fun to watch and not just because of the skill set. His demeanor…sometimes guys come up here and you can tell that they are putting on a front as far as looking confident when they’re really spinning inside and they’re 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…his overall presence on the field is felt. That’s not always the case. He’s one of the ones that you can get pretty excited about what’s to come…and the way he’s working now…there’s an urgency to it. He knows it’s close.
What about the issues with Jordan Walker?
“This has been one that…keeps us up at night. We have to figure it out. When I say I’m committed to it, I need to think of a stronger word to make sure that this dude figures it out…with us…because there’s a real skill set there, but I do feel like we missed some time in getting to where we’re at now. I wished we would have gotten to this point sooner. What I mean by that where there’s real vulnerability of what has actually happened…how do we feel…how are we gonna get on the other side of this to create real change…not just say we’re working on something, (but) six months later it looks very similar. I feel like we’re finally at a point where that’s happening. It could be a month before we feel good about it…it could be three months before we feel good about it…I may feel good about it in 3 hours….I don’t know. I like where we’re at with what’s taking place. There’s a real responsibility on both ends here…on mine, on Brownie and that whole hitting department…to unlock what he’s capable of…and there’s real responsibility on (Jordan’s) end, too…of carrying the work that he’s doing into the game. We’re doing everything possible for that to be the case…but this is one that has not gone well and we need it to go well. All hands on deck for this one.”
Big thanks to Oli Marmol and the St. Louis Cardinals for allowing us direct access. We’re 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.
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