Cardinals Rumors: Oliver Marmol is the favorite to be next manager

Oliver Marmol reportedly “looks like the favorite” to be next St. Louis Cardinals manager.

When you make a move of the magnitude of what the St. Louis Cardinals did Thursday, firing manager Mike Shildt after a playoff berth, there is a good chance the team knows how they plan to replace him.

Indeed, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said that the team would seriously consider internal candidates. There have been external candidates linked to the job, including Skip Schumaker, Walt Weiss and Matt Holiday. But it “looks like the favorite” to be the Cardinals’ next manager is current bench coach Oliver Marmol, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network.

Now, it should be said that the Cardinals haven’t even interviewed any candidates and that the process is just beginning. That said, Mozeliak said that he hopes to fill the position quickly — they don’t want to delay their offseason at all — and are clearly familiar with Marmol, who has worked under Shildt for years and has been touted by the former-manager as a strong candidate for a managerial opening in the future.

The Cardinals want to keep their coaching staff intact — especially hitting coach Jeff Albert — and Marmol would seem likely to abide by Mozeliak’s wishes. The same can be said for pitching coach Mike Maddux, who is under contract through 2022 and has already indicated a desire to stay in St. Louis. It’s possible that Shildt wanted to move on from Albert — the team reportedly considered coaching changes during the season — but there had to have been other philosophical differences to make the Cardinals abruptly move on from Shildt.

But a sticking point surely had to have been the coaching staff and, if Marmol is indeed willing to keep the staff intact, he could be in a strong position to become the Cardinals next manager. There are going to be further developments in the managerial search, but as of right now, Marmol appears to enter the search as the favorite.