Cardinals fans shouldn't lament the Angels' potential hiring of Albert Pujols

News about Albert Pujols has a way of sending ripples throughout Cardinals Nation.

Many St. Louis Cardinals fans have long clamored for the dismissal of manager Oli Marmol, and when news broke that Cardinals legend Albert Pujols was seeking a managerial position in the major leagues, it only amplified that demand. For those fans, Chaim Bloom's message that Marmol will return in 2026 followed by the news that Pujols is the leading candidate to be the Los Angeles Angels' next manager must have felt like a one-two punch to the gut.

If the Angels decide to hire Pujols, it will be another knife-twisting moment to see him managing a team besides the Cardinals, the team with whom he was universally beloved and found historic levels of success as a player. However, it could be for the best that Pujols' first foray into managing may not occur in St. Louis.

Pujols' first major league managing job could be a bumpy ride.

Although Pujols was a successful manager in the Dominican Winter League, the major leagues is a whole different can of worms. He will have to work with players through the grind of a 162-game season and face the media before and after every game. For the Angels, a team that is unlikely to find much success in 2026, that could become an especially grueling endeavor.

Another former Cardinal who received a bit of buzz as St. Louis' potential manager if Marmol had not been retained is Skip Schumaker. Schumaker was just named the Texas Rangers' new manager, and he's taken a much more convential path to a managing job than Pujols would. Schumaker was the first base coach for the San Diego Padres in 2018 and 2019 and became their assistant manager in 2020. Schumaker then served as the Cardinals' bench coach in 2022 before being plucked by the Miami Marlins to serve as their manager. There, he won the National League Manager of the Year award in his first season at the helm.

Unlike Pujols, who was a superstar in every sense of the word, Schumaker was, at best, an adequate major league player, and that may actually lend itself to more success as a manger. There are precious few all-time great players who went on to prosper as managers, and that is likely in part because of many star players' difficulty in being able to coach players who are not as naturally gifted with talent.

Players whom Pujols guided to a championship in the Dominican Winter League had glowing reviews of the first-time skipper, so it's possible that Pujols has a one-of-a-kind talent to relate to players who don't hold anywhere near the skills that he possessed. But how will major league players feel about being coached by one of the greatest hitters to ever live? Some players could put undue pressure on themselves to do more than they're capable of with Pujols watching them, and those who seek advice from Pujols may simply be unable to translate that into games the way their manager did.

When teams don't perform well, the manager is often the first to go, and that may be true of Pujols if the Angels can't exceed expectations. Theoretically, the Cardinals could hire Pujols after 2026 if the Angels were to dismiss him, but if he doesn't find success in St. Louis, either because he struggles to manage lesser players or because the players simply don't perform well, how will St. Louis react to their one-time idol? It's likely that the all-time great's reputation would take an irreparable hit.

If the Angels decide to roll with Pujols as their next manager, it will be a fascinating test run for him in his first major league coaching position. For Cardinals fans, it would hurt to see him wearing a uniform other than the birds on the bat, but for now, it's likely for the best that the Cardinals stick with their original plan and watch from afar as Pujols gets his feet wet at the highest level.