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. 

Joe McEwing

If we go by recent history, the bench coach of the St. Louis Cardinals was hired to take over for the outgoing manager the last two times. Therefore, one of the candidates to take over if necessary would be former Cardinals utility player and current bench coach "Super Joe" McEwing.

After McEwing retired in 2006, he began his professional baseball coaching experience in the Chicago White Sox organization. McEwing managed the Double-A Winston-Salem Dash and Triple-A Charlotte Knights before being promoted to the Chicago White Sox. From 2012 to 2022, McEwing served as a third-base coach and bench coach.

With experience working with three different managers and his ties with the Cardinals organization, McEwing represents a solid candidate for a future manager position.

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.