St. Louis Cardinals: 3 manager candidates if Oli Marmol is fired

The St. Louis Cardinals are back in the cellar of the National League after a disastrous, and quite frankly embarrassing, road trip that saw them blow leads in four of the six games.

Let me preface this article by saying that Oliver Marmol is not responsible for all of the problems the Cardinals are going through. This was, and still is, a flawed roster with inadequate pitching that was constructed by John Mozeliak and Mike Girsch. This pitching staff fails to finish batters off, plus a surprisingly inconsistent offense should not be squarely blamed on Marmol.

Now what should be blamed on Marmol? The egregious lack of fundamentals this Cardinals team has lost, the bizarre managerial decisions, and the low morale the players give off. Just look at this dropoff:

This is the most off-kilter Cardinals team we’ve seen since the first half of 2018, and we know how that ended for Mike Matheny. In fact, after their 1-0 win at Texas, this was how they looked high-fiving each other. Does that look like a team with a lot of confidence? 

John Mozeliak gave Oliver Marmol a staunch vote of confidence in an exclusive interview with Katie Woo of The Athletic. This should not surprise you. Mozeliak does not want to fire his third manager since July 2018. So with no inclination to go in a different direction, firing Marmol during the season appears unlikely right now. 

But let’s say the Cardinals do not improve at all for the rest of the season, and we continue to see the current uninspired and unmotivated product on the field. Bill DeWitt Jr and John Mozeliak will not want to go through another season like this and make a change.

If the front office makes a manager change at the end of the season, here are three possible replacements if Oliver Marmol is sacked. 

Stubby Clapp

Before becoming the first-base coach, Stubby Clapp managed the Triple-A Memphis Redbirds and had received interest from the Toronto Blue Jays before they hired Charlie Montoyo.  

Clapp was a long-time minor league who got a cup of coffee with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1999. Before coming to the Cardinals as a coach, Clapp served as a hitting coach and manager for various Houston Astros minor-league teams. In 2013, he became the hitting coach for Toronto's Advanced-A team, the Dunedin Blue Jays and later the hitting coach for Double-A New Hampshire in 2014. However, it was with Memphis from 2016 to 2018 where his coaching career really blossomed.

In two years as the Memphis skipper, Clapp recorded a .619 winning percentage (174-107) including a franchise best record of 91-50 in 2017. Clapp has been recognized as Pacific Coast League Manager of the Year in 2017 and 2018. Baseball America recognized Clapp as their Minor League Manager of the Year in 2017 and he received the J. Roy Stockton/Bob Broeg Award for outstanding achievement in baseball from the St. Louis chapter of the BBWAA.

If Stubby Clapp does not become a manager of the Cardinals, he certainly will get that opportunity with another Major League Baseball team.

Miguel Cairo

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Miguel Cairo played for the St. Louis Cardinals on two seperate occasions in his career.

An MLB journeyman who played for nine different MLB teams, Cairo is another managerial candidate who, like Joe McEwing, came from the Chicago White Sox organization. In 2020, Miguel Cairo was promoted to bench coach to replace McEwing, who returned to third-base coaching duties. He remained with the White Sox until the end of last season. Cairo is now with the New York Mets as a minor-league infield coordinator.

Cairo is the only candidate on this list who has MLB managing experience as an interim manager. In 2021, Miguel Cairo managed the White Sox in the epic Field of Dreams game against the New York Yankees. Last season, Cairo took over for the White Sox when Tony La Russa missed the rest of the season due to health concerns. That experience got Cairo an interview for the vacant White Sox manager position before it went to Pedro Grifol.