Cards hire Marmol

Oliver Marmol, 35, was promoted from bench coach to the majors’ youngest manager Monday, taking over the St. Louis Cardinals almost two weeks after Mike Shildt was fired. Marmol is the team’s youngest manager since Marty Marion at age 34 in 1951.

As Oliver Marmol transitioned into a coaching career with the St. Louis Cardinals, it became clear he had the potential to become a big league manager one day.

That day has arrived — a little earlier than expected.

The 35-year-old Marmol was promoted from bench coach to the majors’ youngest manager on Monday, taking over the Cardinals almost two weeks after Mike Shildt was fired in a surprise move by one of baseball’s most stable franchises.

“I really felt like Oli was going to be a major league manager at some point. I did not think it was necessarily going to be 2022,” said John Mozeliak, the president of baseball operations for the Cardinals.

Marmol is the team’s youngest manager since Marty Marion at age 34 in 1951. Marmol, a New Jersey native who traces his lineage to the Dominican Republic, also becomes the franchise’s second minority manager. Cuban-born Mike Gonzalez managed the team for parts of the 1938 and 1940 seasons.

“Some of the neighborhoods we lived in early on … these opportunities don’t come across the table to the majority of the people that grew up like that,” Marmol said. “For them to be able to identify and see someone of color in a position of leadership, especially for a franchise, a winning franchise, one with a history that the St. Louis Cardinals has, is extremely meaningful.”

Marmol was picked by St. Louis in the sixth round of the 2007 amateur draft out of the College of Charleston, but his playing career stalled at Class A Palm Beach. After coaching and managing in the minors, he joined the Cardinals’ major league staff in 2017 as the first base coach.

He spent the past three years as the bench coach under Shildt, helping St. Louis to three consecutive postseason appearances. The Cardinals used a 17-game win streak in September to move into playoff position, but they lost 3-1 to the Dodgers in the National League wild-card game.