Examining new St. Louis Cardinals manager Oli Marmol’s career

The St. Louis Cardinals have a new manager, Oliver Marmol, but what kind of playing experience does he bring to the role?

In a Monday morning press conference, the St. Louis Cardinals revealed that their 10-day search for a new manager to replace the recently fired Mike Shildt landed on his bench coach Oli Marmol.

Many writers and fans will dissect Marmol’s qualifications based on his previous coaching and managing experience – and justifiably so considering he becomes, at age 35, the youngest manager in Major League Baseball today.

I was curious to see how his playing career worked out, besides obviously being rather brief given his youthfulness and several years of coaching and managing already on his resume.

Marmol played high school ball in Florida and was drafted in the 31st round of the 2004 MLB draft by the Pittsburgh Pirates. He turned down the opportunity to go pro at that time and attended the College of Charleston in South Carolina for three years.

His stock certainly rose, as Marmol was a sixth-round selection by the Cardinals in 2007.  This time, unsurprisingly, he signed, and Marmol soon was on his way to Batavia of the New York-Penn League, moving up to Quad Cities of the Midwest League later that season.

That 2007 campaign was split fairly evenly in terms of games – 33 with Batavia, 31 with Quad Cities – though he received 146 plate appearances with the former team compared to 100 with the latter. Marmol’s triple-slash results were similar at both stops, leading to an overall line of .212/.314/.255 that summer.  A triple and 11 stolen bases were the highlights of his first year in pro ball.

In 2008, Marmol repeated similar games and PA splits as in the previous season, but this time starting in Quad Cities before being promoted to Palm Beach of the Florida State League. In only 62 more plate appearance that in ’07, Marmol had exactly twice as many triples and stolen bases, and he recorded his first professional home run. However, his line sank to .188/.261/.257.

A total of 74 games and 223 PA in ’09 yielded two homers and a .204/.321/.301 line.  The 2010 season was shorter for Marmol, just 33 games and 126 PA, with another two long balls and a .221/.336/.365 line that concluded his professional career.

For his career, Marmol was a .203/.301/.282 hitter in 262 games at various A-level Cardinals affiliates.  It’s not exactly the type of performance that opens the doors to Cooperstown, but St. Louis saw something else in him that caused them to keep Marmol around.

He managed at Johnson City, State College, and Palm Beach during the 2012′-’16 seasons before earning the first base coaching gig with the big club for two seasons starting in 2017.  And in 2019, he was moved to the bench coach role in support of Shildt.

And now, a Single-A ballplayer who showed a little promise – not so much on the field but more in support of those playing the game – has been tabbed as the new manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.