Oli Marmol: Spring Training Media Session | St. Louis Cardinals

Manager Oli Marmol met with the media for the first time during Spring Training 2024 on February 14, 2024 in Jupiter, Fla.

Morning morning fire away I when you have as many new faces as you do what’s the challenge of you know incorporating them building chemistry building familiarity with those guys uh it’s extremely important it’s what we spent the a little bit of the offseason doing and um

It was really good to get them all in one room and uh start to talk through uh process and culture and uh what it looks like to come together but uh we were very specific and I know we’ve talked about it enough of the names that we

Went out out and got and um they’re here for a reason and um to say that we’re excited about it is a is an understatement oh you have a lot of guys who want to be here you have Lance Lyn back you have Matt Carpenter back guys

Who say they want to be Cardinals what does that do for the energy right now going to Spring yeah it’s important when guys actually want to play here and uh when you look at Sunny he wanted to be here Gibby wanted to play here Lance wanted to play here karp wanted to come

Back when you go down that list they’re excited to be a cardinal um there’s a lot a lot of things when you enter free agency that you end up chasing these guys wanted to make sure that they were here we wanted to make sure they were

Here and I’m glad it worked out the way it did how do you see that play out in the clubhouse like that that idea that they wanted to be here and that they are here how does that I guess impact the RO um it it’s helpful uh this offseason

Just being able to jump on calls with them individually and then get them all on one call and and kind of talk through some things it’s uh it’s helpful when you have a ton of players that want to be here and be in St Louis and be

Cardinals and uh know what we stand for and and get back to winning baseball after after last year so uh the conversations that we’ve had have been awesome hey all with today being the bench mark of the first day pitchers and catchers can officially go out starting

The season if you will can you just describe why you’re excited and think this team can crack the postseason and then even make hay in the postseason yeah from a skill standpoint I think we have what it’s takes um but today’s day one of just attention to detail through

The roof uh when you talk about the fundamentals getting back to our style of play um that starts today and it starts in the most mundane drills um but it’s the attention of detail that comes with those drills and putting yourself in game situations mentally even if it’s

A a ton of repetitions of something that you don’t want to do but uh today’s the the start of that and we have the right mindset going into it with the group that we have most said that you guys were obviously chasing experience you wanted guys who’ve been there and done

It before but when you do that you end up with guys in their mid-30s do does age dictate maybe how you handle a pitch and staff or do you have to handle it differently with you know guys in in their 30s uh no even though you’re in

Your 30s each guy is different uh they bring something different to the table so am I concerned with the age of our rotation not necessarily now um but uh no no they’re not all one and the same when you start a what did I do go

Ahead go ahead let skip both of you guys in a minute go ahead go ahead when you start a spring schedule um do you work back from the first kind of opening weeks of a regular season and how do you look at that because your all regular season going to

Start with fewer off days than usual yeah so is that a factor already today it is a factor I mean you’re so trying to plan for your opening games here with the double header right which is unusual in itself um so you’re planning to have enough innings for that but you you are

Looking at day one of the regular season that opener and working backwards always yeah and so how does that I mean opening up with eight games in a row eight without an off day yeah eight without an off day and 10 with only one yeah and

And I know you can you have a unlimited roster for two of them but um but you don’t have an unlimited travel budget so you you have to go with it how do there’s different ways we’re thinking about it internally um of how we uh usually you want guys on a six day

Leading into kind of the the beginning of the year so there’s different ways we’ve kind of mapped it out and um as we get closer we’ll see where we’re at healthwise and make a decision I as a a young manager and obviously it’s a fresh start now what do you take away from

Last year in terms of learning about managing and about yourself as a manager from obviously a season that didn’t go as you had hoped um no it didn’t go as as we would hop and the reality is uh it was very difficult um I I mentioned it during winter warmup it definitely will

Test your character and uh you have a lot of time during the offseason a longer offseason than I would have wanted to reflect on what you want to do differently but sitting here and talking about it does no good the reality is um you’re going to have to show it so we’ll

Go out there i’ rather not talk about it uh we’re just going to go out there and and show what we’re capable of doing and that starts today looking looking forward at the season would be a lot better for you guys if Mason went had a great spring and just ease right into

Starting shorts up what do what do you see what did you see from last year that makes you believe he will be able to do that no he’s more than capable of doing it we saw a really good spring out of him um in conversation with him it’s

It’s not putting too much pressure on himself offensively to try to do more than he needs to uh it’s going to be a key to him having some success early on with us but yeah our hope is that he goes out there and wins the job um it

Puts us in a in a really good position if that’s the case so I’m excited to see him this spring he’s ready for it too how do you have to handle Tommy uh with you know coming off the surgery do you have to ease him in I know it’s going to

Go in steps and phases how how limited is he you know at the start yeah we still have a decent amount of time before we open up so you you do have to kind of make sure you’re progressing through that properly um he’s Limited at the moment um we’ll continue to monitor

His progress and as we get closer to Breaking Camp we’ll see how close he is to taking that bats and feeling comfortable in the box and we’ll go from there but it’s too early to tell at the moment when you look at how you’re I mean you’re going to have six or seven

Weeks to really put it together when you look at how your roster is currently constructed what do you think is going to be the most competitive area this spring um there’s a couple I don’t even we want to see Mason do well in Spring but there’s some spots in that Bullpen that are

Also up for grabs um so it’ll be it’ll be good to see some of these names compete out there um over the next several weeks but I would say that that’s the spot that when you look at our rotation if we’re healthy we have a pretty good idea of what that looks like

What our five guys are but in the pen there’s some there’s some open spots there at that point Ali what does a trajectory for spring look like for both Zach and liby what do you need to see for them and sort of where they fit yeah I think those decisions you don’t have

To make till later you definitely build them up to be able to throw multiple Innings and and kind of work them as starters um and then as you get closer you make a decision of where they going to where they going to provide the most

Help whether that’s out of the pen or in the rotation or if health is a concern for one of our starters and who slots in there so yeah how do you kind of balance the risk of putting a lid on the guy like those are both guys who have been

Really productive for you out of the buol who has minor leers were successful starters where is the risk between like okay this guy’s a reliever versus maybe still even at 26 27 there’s more in there uh yeah it’s a really good question and something you have to

Balance at the end of the day you’re wanting to win a World Series and if he can help do that out of the pen then that’s the decision you make um but we’ve had plenty of success of guys being in the bullpen and then becoming a start of the following year I don’t

Think that’s out of the question with either one of those guys we were able to see a cool relation or cool interaction between sunny gry and Wilson Contreras yesterday both have very fiery competitive Energies can you talk about how important those relationships are going to be moving

Forward cuz that was just day one that’s what this Camp is about pitchers and catchers getting here early before it gets a little crazier it’s the relationship is key and um Wilson’s done a good job of even I mean he lives in Orlando driving down anytime Michael has

Had a a bullpen and just catching him and making sure that that starts even before spring training so um I’m I’m thrilled with what that’s looking like but to your point both of those guys are extremely competitive um it’ll be fun to watch the them do this together yeah in

An ideal season like organizationally big picture is it would you want your five starters that you break camp with to make every start or would you rather mix some of the younger guys in there and get you know get them accustom again to starting and no we got those guys to

Start in ide World Health as side they start Yeah you mentioned you mentioned Michael uh he was talking yesterday a little bit about looking back at 22 and 18 and some of the things things that worked so well for him then what sort of things do you feel like you’d like to

See him get back to so that last year is just sort of a a one off as opposed to a trend or something man that’s a somewhat of a loaded question cuz there’s a lot of ways to dissect it um I will say if you look at the distribution of just

Ball and play it was different and it hurt him um so there’s a couple different ways to look at this um I can elaborate quite a bit later but it’s he’s very aware of what he needs to do in order from a pitch standpoint um but

You have to take into account once the ball was in play what what took place as well um once you kind of filter that out it’s not as bad as you would think yeah situation being relatively uncertain with Tommy being UNC who do you envision besides Mas Dylan Carl and

And kind of stepping up and taking some of that when we get closer to games from that action yeah um Tommy’s going to be limited to your point Mason we’re going to see a decent amount of him at short and then there’s a com combination of guys that can fill in Center obviously

You got Carlson you want to see burlson out there from time to time um I’d like to see donavin early on in Camp just at one position then bounce around based on his limitations of throwing um so you can see some time over at Short you can

See some time over at third and then at second as well but there’s a combination guys that could Bounce Around based on um Tommy not being ready what are Don’s limitations right now uh he’s thrown he’s doing well but I once we start games I’d like to not push it and bounce

Him around too much I’d like him to just play one position get used to it and then slowly progress him to to do other things so he relatively all clear it’s just a matter of being cautious then um once we start games it’ll be a matter of

Just being cautious yeah second base I’d like to start at second yeah and then make our way from there is there a lot of playing time for Victor in Center absolutely because of the way this is no doubt about it Keenan Middleton was a guy you s just a couple weeks ago what

Have you learned about him have you been able to talk what’s his personality like he’s awesome um I actually had him over the house after he signed and and was able to spend some time with him and he’s uh he’s got some fire to him man

He’s uh he’s going to fit well with what we have going on here um he adds a certain Edge to that Bullpen that I’m looking forward to um he’s one that likes being held accountable but also um part of his personality is holding others accountable and he wants to win

Uh he likes having structure and um I think he’s going to fit in really well but my time with them back in St Louis was awesome really was you feel like you have multiple options late in games now you do yeah I think I think when you

Look at Hesley and Jojo and uh Andrew um Middleton I mean you go down that list it’s you have some some real arms that could shorten the game so I look forward to seeing it well you mentioned the the edge with Middleton obviously there’s a lot of things that go into whether or

Not a deal with a free agent comes to fruition but do you get the sense of that sort of edge that he can personify and some of your other guys that you signed personify was that something you guys were chasing this offseason to kind of Infuse into this Clubhouse yeah I

Think rather than just going off after a specific style of pitcher you’re going after specific names and what they br bring outside of their pitches they throw and kind of their performance uh but what they bring from a personality standpoint um and I think we were very intentional about that with our

Rotation and some of the guys that we ended up requiring for the Buon so yes you opened up by talking about the the notion of guys wanting to be here in your conversations with free agents knowing to the extent that you were like involved with those is that something

You waited to hear from from them or you asked them um no it’s a commodate like those deals got done pretty quick for a reason I mean we knew who we wanted and why we wanted them okay and uh there’s a reason we were able to wrap

Up those three pretty pretty early on in the in the off season it was clear what they were wanting and what we were wanting and it matched and thankfully they’re here in Camp so so but even like Middleton like I know we talk a lot about the starters you add it but just

The description you gave of Middleton it sounded like like he he expressed at least part of that or at least expressed what he wanted and you said well we got that here yeah and when you start to Think Through um what else you want to add to the bullpen outside of Firepower

Um he spent a little bit of time with Lance so we we had a really good idea of what he brings to the table from a personality standpoint and it fit our description of what we were looking for um so that’s where I see yeah we um Jeff

Asked about Zach and olivy doing multiple Innings anybody else will like Palante do multiple Innings to start here are there other guys like that same like building up to be a starter no okay are there other guys that you just or out the list that you’re correct yeah

Those are the two that yeah I I wonder about because you’ll need Innings from yeah I get it but not to that same degree that same thank you y talk about the intentional things that have been done in the offseason are you able to give an illustration of what right now

You’re seeing as a result of that deliberateness in the offseason communication yeah you just have guys that care about one another and that’s a big deal when you’re trying to be a team and hit Camp running um they’re going to be intentional about coming together and doing the little

Things well and uh I think we’re in a really good spot to do both yeah oh Herrera had a pretty strong showing this winter what is sort of the benefit of that do you feel like for you guys for him and also just you know getting started a little bit earlier and getting

Into Camp you know hav’t already played a lot just the continuing the experience for him is is always good especially in on different stages and that’s one that was a good one for him um there’s a lot on the line and he can feel that so the

More games like that that he can play the better but he’s continuing to just slow it down because of it um the game is slower to him defensively game calling um just overall you can just tell there’s he’s relaxed and quiet back there and that that’s a big deal so

We’re continuing to see a great deal of maturity out of out of Herrera and just conversations with him and you can just tell he’s he’s growing up um and he’s starting to feel like he belongs here which is uh a really good indicator