Bernie’s Redbird Review: The Cardinals Overachieved In 2024, But What Does That Mean For Manager Oli Marmol?

THE REDBIRD REVIEW

Before the season, the sportsbooks and analytics sites checked in with win-total projections for the 2024 Cardinals. Here’s a representative sampling, based on thousands of simulations:

PECOTA: 85 wins.

Baseball Prospectus: 84.3 wins

FanGraphs: 83.7 wins

ZIPS: 83 wins

Clay Davenport: 81 wins.

Baseball Reference: 70.2 wins

In Las Vegas, the general consensus at the sportsbooks listed the Cardinals with an over/under total of 81.5 wins.

If we take the seven forecasts and average them out, it comes to 81.2 wins for the Cards in ‘24. After winning at Colorado on Monday night, the Cardinals moved to three games over .500 at 80-77.

Wrote David Schoenfield at ESPN:

“The Cardinals were who we thought they were: a .500-ish team. Before the season, it seemed clear they needed bounce-back seasons from Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado to boost the offense. That didn’t happen, and the Cardinals will finish middle of the pack in the NL in runs. They got mostly what you would have expected from free agent starters Sonny Gray, Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn — some durability for a rotation that needed it — but it wasn’t enough.

“If anything, the Cardinals overachieved just to finish around .500 given they’ve been outscored by 50-plus runs. Masyn Winn had a promising rookie season, but Nolan Gorman was so bad the Cardinals finally sent him down to Triple-A and Jordan Walker was even worse. The future here looks more than a little murky.”

Agreed. We won’t have a better idea of what to expect for 2025 until Cardinals’ ownership-management announces their planned changes to shake things up and reset.

Schoenfield touched on one aspect of the 2024 Cardinals that doesn’t get talked about much: they overachieved. Based on their current minus 55 run differential, the Cardinals should have a record of 73-84 for a winning percentage of .465. But their actual record is 80-77 (.510).

Translation: St. Louis has outperformed its expected record by eight wins.

That’s a lot. In fact, as of Wednesday afternoon, no major-league team had won more games above their expected win total than the Cardinals.

So if you think the Redbirds have underachieved in 2024 … well, sorry, but you are incorrect. The opposite is true. The Cardinals have surpassed their  win-loss record by eight victories.

Over the last three seasons only two teams – Miami in 2023 and Seattle in 2021 – have done better than the 2024 Cardinals at winning more games than they should have based on being outscored by a wide margin.

I don’t know if this will be enough for Oli Marmol to keep his job, and a lot depends on who is making the decision. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak? Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and team president Bill DeWitt III? And where does Chaim Bloom fit in all of this?

Marmol has two years left on his contract extension, but that doesn’t mean he’ll stay in the job. If the Cardinals sack Marmol, their only obligation would be paying off the guaranteed salaries owed to him over the next two seasons.

If the Cardinals decide to remove and replace Marmol, it won’t be because the 2024 team underachieved … because it didn’t underachieve. Not even close.

If Marmol is told to pack up and go, it won’t be because the 2024 Cardinals staggered to a finish that was significantly worse than the preseason projections. If the Cardinals win just two of their final five games, they’ll have an 82-82 record. That fits into the projected-win average. And an 82-82 mark would still be several games higher than expected based on run differential. If the Cardinals win at least three of their remaining five contests, they’ll be above .500 for the season.

That isn’t the goal. The goal should be much higher. I’m hardly waving the pom-poms here. The organization must raise the fallen standards and build the caliber of roster that can win the division and be capable of making a postseason push.

The fact that the Cardinals are a .500 type of team is an indictment of the people who control the fate of the franchise. Ownership. The front office. Complacency. Neglect. In my view Marmol did about as well as he could have with the roster handed to him. Mozeliak solidified the rotation and made it more respectable, but the Cardinals needed a lot more than that to approach a 90-win season.

The Cardinals were a better team this year – compared to the 2023 collapse – primarily because of Marmol’s astute bullpen management. That certainly factored into their 29-14 record (so far) in one-run games. And Marmol’s team is 57-38 in games determined by three runs or less.

Just like Miami manager Skip Schumaker last season, who overcame a terrible offense in 2023 to go 33-14 in one-run games and get the Marlins into the postseason as a wild card. It isn’t easy to have a good record in close games, and I never deduct credit from a manager who does well in close-call games.

If Marmol is fired after the season, it would likely be for one of several reasons:

1) Fans cannot separate him from Mozeliak. This fanbase has turned on Mozeliak and there’s no coming back from that. Marmol is viewed as Mozeliak’s pet. If the Cardinals want to regenerate fan enthusiasm, they have to move Mozeliak aside and install a new manager.

2) Mozeliak stays in charge, and replaces Marmol because it will appease the fans to a certain extent. Fans who are down on Mozeliak will continue to be venomous with Mozeliak … but having a new manager would change the subject for a while. Especially if the new choice for a manager is popular with the fans. Schumacher comes to mind (obviously) but there are others including Terry Francona if he wants to return to managing. I’m not sure about Yadier Molina. (The volatility is a concern.) I’m more intrigued by Albert Pujols.

3) Chaim Bloom is elevated to the top of the baseball department after the current season and determines that it would be best to choose his own manager, start fresh, and go in a different direction. Bloom was part of the process that resulted in Tampa Bay hiring Joe Maddon and then Kevin Cash. Bloom was really young when Maddon got hired – and not in a position of authority – but the higher ups wanted his ideas and made him part of the unofficial screening committee. Bloom seems to be open-minded about different styles of managers.

4) If the Cardinals have a restless yearning to hire pending managerial free agent Skip Schumaker, they’d have to make that move quicky. Three MLB teams already fired their manager during the season — White Sox, Mariners, Reds — and are looking for a new leader. That list will expand, with a few more clubs joining the search after making the decision to dump their current manager. Schumaker will be coveted. There will be competition for his services. If the Cardinals really believe Schumaker is the manager they must have, then they’ll have to take action and move Marmoi out of the job. If the Redbirds delay, Schumaker will land elsewhere.

Of course, Marmol could be back for 2025. It depending on who is running baseball operations, Mozeliak could want to keep Marmol in place … or Bloom could retain Marmol … and chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. could prefer a Marmol return — because he’d be paying Oli, anyway. If the Cardinals decide that Marmol is their manager for 2025, I’d expect to see sweeping changes on the coaching staff. But that is unlikely to appease the percentage of fans that want Marmol going, going, gone.

Thanks for reading …

–Bernie

A 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, Bernie has provided informed opinions and perspective on St. Louis sports through his columns, radio shows and podcasts since 1985.

Please check out the new Bernie Miklasz Show channel on YouTube. And thank you for subscribing. Here’s the link: @TheBernieShow

Please follow Bernie on X @b_miklasz and Threads @miklaszb

Stats used in my baseball columns are sourced from FanGraphs, Baseball Reference, Statcast, StatHead, Baseball Savant, Baseball Prospectus, Brooks Baseball Net, and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise noted.