The Cardinals and manager Oli Marmol have agreed to a two-year contract extension, according to a report from Derrick Goldold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Marmol was entering the final year of his contract in 2026 but will now be in St. Louis for the 2027 season and the ’28 season, with a club option for 2029. The Cardinals then announced Marmol’s new contract.
It is the second extension Marmol has signed with the Cardinals. The 39-year-old first took charge at St. Louis following the firing of Mike Shildt in October of 2021. Marmol’s first season as manager saw the Cardinals climb to the top with a 93-win season thanks to MVP-level performances from both. Paul Goldschmidt (prize winner in NL) and Nolan Arenado (who finished third). Unfortunately, the Cardinals were quickly eliminated by the Phillies in the Wild Card round that year and went home that October without winning a single playoff game.
The end of the 2022 campaign also marked the end of a long-time face of the franchise Yadier MolinaMolina’s playing career, and Molina’s departure ushered in a time of passing for Cardinals baseball. While the club added an impact bat behind the plate in the middle Wilson Contreraspitchers at st. Louis found it difficult to adjust to life after the nine-time Glover Glover he was used to working with. Meanwhile, both Goldschmidt and Arenado have regressed significantly, with injuries to key players. Brendan Donovan again Tyler O’Neill left the Cardinals falling from the top of the NL Central to the bottom with a 91-loss campaign. Over the years, the Cards haven’t fared much better. In 2024 the franchise just got back slightly above .500 with an 83-79 record that left them tied for second in the NL Central, but the team went back under .500 in 2025.
As difficult as Marmol’s time in St. Louis is difficult, management and ownership clearly do not put the struggles of the organization at his feet. They signed him to a two-year extension before the 2024 campaign, his final year at the helm this year, and after John Mozeliak retired and new president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom took over, Bloom and team ownership expressed confidence in Marmol as we prepare for today’s expansion.
It is understandable why the team would choose to stick with Marmol despite the lack of success on the pitch. The Cardinals tied Marmol to a system that was stagnant and worn out most of his time with the organization. Except for the Contreras deals and Sonny Gray (both traded to the Red Sox this past season), St. Louis has made very little effort to improve the roster through trades and free agency in recent years, instead banking on internal development that has yet to materialize. That lack of internal development was caused by the club’s decision to redistribute funds that were once used for the development of players in order to strengthen the salary of the main team, and in the last two years the team has begun to move to the stage of reconstruction where it plans to reduce the salary level and return its focus to the development of players.
Given the current state of the organization, it’s understandable that the Cardinals would look to retain someone they trusted enough to install as an MLB minor league manager during his tenure. Now heading into his fifth season as a big league manager (with a decade of coaching experience before that), Marmol now has plenty of experience managing young and veteran players and his work with last year’s Cardinals team, which lacked the winning expectations that now come with multiple seasons in St.
