“Today is about Oli,” president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said Monday morning while introducing Oliver Marmol as the 51st manager of the Cardinals.
Well, not exactly.
It sure was hard to keep the conversation from veering back toward the 50th manager, wasn’t it?
Mike Shildt just kept coming up, and he will continue to until the Cardinals prove that dumping mentor for mentee was a move that will be as good for on-field success as it was for the front office’s feelings.
Mozeliak shed a little more light on his decision to fire Shildt less than two weeks before announcing Marmol as his replacement, thankfully dropping the confusing label of “philosophical differences” for a more telling summary, one of a front office and a manager who just could not get along as well as the front office thinks a manager and a front office should.
Mozeliak clarified that he did not leave the wild-card loss in Los Angeles expecting to change managers. He said the presence of up-and-coming Marmol as Shildt’s bench coach helped him make the unexpected call when end-of-season conversations went sideways for Shildt. If you were wondering how seriously the Cardinals considered outside options, there is your answer. They didn’t. The front office was sliding Marmol in as soon as Shildt was shoved out.
“Now, many of you are still confused on why we are here in the first place,” Mozeliak said. “Perhaps our explanation on this was a bit vague. But it had to be made. So let me give you some details behind this. We had internal issues we felt we could not resolve. We felt the best path forward was to make a change for the organization, regardless of if it was not a popular one.”
That was Mozeliak trying to flip the page on the Shildt era for good.
Except the page kept flipping back and forth, and sometimes it was Marmol who was doing the flipping.
Marmol gave outstanding answers about not letting his age, 35, be a hindrance in his new role. He described with pride how he hopes the opportunity he has earned can help create more opportunities for other minority candidates who too often are unfairly overlooked. He explained the role of the modern manager as well as anyone could, describing it as a connector between various departments tasked with taking infinite information and turning it into the best possible decisions in real time, his polite way of pushing back against assumptions he will be a yes-manager for the front office.
But perhaps the most telling moments that showed Marmol’s true character came when he discussed Shildt.
Marmol could have tossed Shildt under the bus, like the front office did. He could have simply skipped over any references to Shildt, and it would have been hard to knock him if he took that route. It was his day, not Shildt’s, after all. But Marmol stayed true to himself, and part of who he is as a baseball man was shaped by Shildt, who scouted Marmol as a player and helped shape him as a coach.
Marmol thanked Shildt as one of the mentors who helped prepare him for this moment. He described “mixed emotions” about accepting the job he’s worked so hard for because it came after Shildt’s firing and explained why it was important to him to both seek and receive Shildt’s blessing before saying yes. He detailed how games seated next to Shildt were hours-long rolling conversations about what to do, when and why. Often, the two agreed on which choice was right. He said Shildt will remain a resource for him as he begins to navigate the managerial waters at the major-league level. In fact, the very first question Marmol heard from the media as the Cardinals’ manager was an inquiry about how his direction would compare and contrast with Shildt’s.
“I take a lot from him,” Marmol answered. “He invested heavily and put his name on me when I was in the minor leagues as a staff member. What I will take away from him is his attention to detail. It’s evident. We have all noticed improvements in certain areas of how we play the game. He made it important to himself, to the staff, which makes it important to the players. You saw a lot of that cleaned up. I take a lot of that from Shildty. His attention to detail was great. When you ask me how we will do things different, for me, it’s not so much different as much as, how do we build on the success this organization has had? Because we’ve won here, OK? It’s more so building upon that. For me, that comes with a heavy emphasis on integrating departments. There’s just so much information at hand. Being collaborative, not only with the front office but with baseball development and the performance department and the analytics department, there’s just so much we can tap into that will allow us to move this forward in a way I’m truly energized to do.”
That quote, it should be noted, showed more appreciation toward the former manager than the front office has shown since Shildt’s firing.
Marmol is smart. Seeing firsthand how things ended for Shildt, who is now a Padres managerial candidate, should be a valuable lesson moving forward. He should have a good sense of what can and can’t be said and what invisible lines must not be crossed. Staying on the right side of the front office helps job security, at times even more than winning. Beyond that, Marmol is in the fortunate position to be propelled forward by the front office’s motivation to build a roster that proves its managerial switch was the correct call. That should help his chances of securing the kind of success his predecessor did not always have a roster equipped to chase.
“At the end of the day, a championship is the goal,” Marmol said. “Anything less than that is a disappointment.”
So maybe Marmol is not always going to stick to the front-office script after all, considering the front office labeled a wild-card loss a success.
Some of you will remember who moved the needle with a similar quote back when he was promoted from Cardinals bench coach to manager.
It was Shildt.
