Inside The Cardinals

Cardinals World Series Champion Opens Up About Oli Marmol

The Cardinals have been the biggest surprise of the 2025 season...
Patrick McAvoy|
May 26, 2025; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol (37) prior to the game against the Baltimore Orioles inning at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images
May 26, 2025; Baltimore, Maryland, USA; St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol (37) prior to the game against the Baltimore Orioles inning at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Mandatory Credit: Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images | Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

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St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals have found a blueprint for success this year.

St. Louis has performed well above expectations. In fact, there likely isn’t a team out there right now that has outperformed expectations like the Cardinals have. A lot of the praise has been for guys like Brendan Donovan, Matthew Liberatore, Iván Herrera, the defense as a whole, etc. One guy who deserves more credit than he already has gotten is manager Oli Marmol.

He entered the season seemingly on the hot seat with leadership set to change after the season with Chaim Bloom taking over as president of baseball operations.

Marmol has been great and should be in the mix for the National League Manager of the Year Award if the team continues its trend from May.

One person who knows a thing or two about this award is former Cardinals fan-favorite and Miami Marlins manager Skip Schumaker. He joined The Athletic's Katie Woo on "Cardinal Territory" and talked about Marmol’s performance this year.

"Well, I think each year you learn something," Schumaker said. "Either from your experience, your coaching staff, former guys, or different players. I think that he's grown into a manager that he really wants to be now. I had him his rookie year. I was learning Oli and he was learning me. We grew into this really good friendship and I will be friends with Oli forever because of how much I respect him. I think as a former manager, you always look back at how you could've done things better. Whether it was how you're getting guys better, talking to the group in the clubhouse, reacting to the media.

"All of these things you're learning as you grow into the manager you're trying to become. He's gotten to the playoffs and have taken young teams to places where a lot of media members didn't think think they would get to so far. It's been really fun also seem him also acquire the staff that he thinks is ready to take this group to the next level. In my opinion, you have to have a really good coaching staff to cover your blind spots."

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Patrick McAvoy
PATRICK MCAVOY

Patrick McAvoy's experiences include local and national sports coverage at the New England Sports Network with a focus on baseball and basketball. Outside of journalism, Patrick also is pursuing an MBA at Brandeis University. After quickly rising as one of the most productive writers on the site, he expanded his reach to write for Baseball Essential, a national baseball site in Sports Illustrated Media Group. For all business/marketing inquiries regarding Inside The Cardinals, please reach out to Scott Neville: nevilles@merrimack.edu

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