Home Grown Talent Key for Marmol’s Cardinals Success in 2026 Season

With the emergence of players drafted and developed within their system, St. Louis Cardinals’ manager Oli Marmol has reason to be optimistic for a successful 2026 MLB season.

The Cardinals are a feisty bunch. After the first 13 games on their Grapefruit League schedule, the Cardinals are 8–5. These are encouraging results, given that the club finished in fourth place among National League Central teams with a record of 78–84 in 2025.

With division rivals such as the Chicago Cubs adding free agent slugger Alex Bregman to their lineup, the Pittsburgh Pirates bringing more thump to their offense in welcoming Marcell Ozuna, Ryan O’Hearn, and Brandon Lowe to their roster, plus designated hitter Eugenio Suarez, one of the game’s most sought after free agents this past offseason landing with the Cincinnati Reds, conventional wisdom points to tough times in St. Louis this season.

Conventional wisdom never swung a bat or threw a pitch.

From the end of last season, beginning in October, Cardinals management went on the offensive to improve their ballclub.

Chaim Bloom, president of baseball operations in St. Louis, hasn’t taken his foot off the gas in making player transactions. Gone is perennial all-star third baseman Nolan Arenado, traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Arenado’s departure is costing the Cardinals a hefty price to cover the $31 million of the $42 million contract still owed to the future Hall of Famer.

Brendan Donovan, the club’s regular second baseman, was moved to the Seattle Mariners in a three-team trade.

Bloom, in total since Jan. 1 through the first week of March, has executed just shy of 150 player transactions.

The 40-man roster is in the process of being upgraded. Avoiding the sometimes-nasty air surrounding players and management when taking their case to salary arbitration, St. Louis agreed to one-year deals with core members of its immediate needs.

Infielders Nolan Gorman, Alec Burleson, and JJ Wetherholt, along with outfielders Lars Nootbarr and Jordan Walker, and the signings of pitchers Ryne Stanek and Dustin May, with still three weeks of spring training left to bond, give Cardinals fans and, more importantly, their manager, hope for a productive 2026 campaign.

While leading the Cardinals to southwest Florida on Thursday for an exhibition game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Marmol appeared calm and highly confident about how his roster is jelling.

“He [Masyn Winn] wasn’t scheduled to be here today. We’ll DH him today, and give him tomorrow off,” Marmol told The Epoch Times. “He’ll continue the progression.”

Marmol was addressing the lower back spasms that his 2025 Gold Glove Award winner is dealing with.

Projected to be the club’s Opening Day starting shortstop, Marmol noted that Winn chose to make the 180-mile bus ride from Cardinals camp in West Palm Beach for the exhibition game to work the kinks out of his back. It was also a way to display to his teammates a sense of commitment to the upcoming regular season.

The Cardinals’ pipeline, from their farm system to St. Louis, offers tremendous potential. This spring, Baseball America ranks the Cardinals’ minor League system second, only trailing the Pirates, among all 30 franchises. Wetherholt, the club’s top amateur draft pick in 2024, is ranked second among MLB’s top 100 prospects.

Although selected as a shortstop, Werherholt is getting plenty of work this spring at second base. New to the position, this seems the rookie’s clearest and quickest route to make the Cardinals coming out of camp. Marmol understands the importance of bringing highly touted prospects along with the utmost care.

As successful as Winn has proven to be in just two full MLB seasons under his belt, he’s still learning the many nuances of what it means to be a major leaguer.

Werherholt has just 138 minor league games to his credit, and 45 of those times in a lineup came at the Triple-A level in 2025. Marmol shared memories of his time of frustration as a player in the minors, when he was trying to work his way up the Cardinals’ minor league ladder.

“Yeah, I have memories,” Marmol shared with The Epoch Times, while sitting in the Cardinals’ dugout one hour prior to the spring game with Pittsburgh.

“In this place (Bradenton), I had a lot of 0-for-4s in games played here, a punch out, and a lot of ground balls hit to third base. I remember being thrown out by a half step from the outfield. No. I don’t miss being here.”

Marmol contends that when playing Class-A ball in the Florida State League for West Palm Beach (2008–2010), he had no aspirations of becoming a big league skipper.

“I’m glad that it worked out that way. Things happened for me, and I’m grateful for them.”

Slow and steady is the course these last few weeks of preparation for the Cardinals’ season opener on March 26 with the Tampa Bay Rays at home.

With 10 players and two coaches temporarily away from camp due to their participation in the World Baseball Classic, Marmol, the third-longest tenured manager in the National League, is grooming his homegrown Cardinals for an improvement over their Central Division performance of a season ago.

As long as Pedro Pages, with teammates Gorman, Burelson, Nootbarr, Winn, Walker, and Wetherholt—all Cardinal draft picks—are healthy for 162 games, it could bring much satisfaction to St. Louis baseball fans, and especially to their manager.