The Bernie Miklasz Show

Oli Marmol will manage the St. Louis Cardinals in 2025 and is under contract to do the same job in 2026. We can't predict the future and set expectations for Marmol's team in 2025. There will be payroll cuts, and some could be harsh. Nucleus players/pitchers are likely to be traded; the only question is, how many? It would be a very challenging year for any manager in this situation, but it's more difficult for Marmol.

Primarily because of his link to president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, Marmol is (presumably) unpopular with a large percentage of Cardinals fans and won't have much of a chance to win them over. But what would it take for Mamrol to keep the job for 2026?

What if the young players and pitchers improve, and the Cardinals win more games than anticipated, and play an entertaining style of baseball? Would incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom want to keep Marmol based on merit? Or will the mood of the fan base -- and a drop in business -- be the overriding factor in the decision to hire a new manager?

If Marmol's term in the manager's office ends after the end of the 2025 season, the Cardinals can turn in several directions for their next choice as manager. Some potential candidates are already in place. (Daniel Descalso and Jon Jay). Another attractive candidate, Skip Schumaker, may still be available unless he signs with another team this coming offseason. And two St. Louis baseball icons -- Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina -- want to manage in the majors and loom as towering candidates. One way or another, 2025 presents an intriguing and unusual situation for Marmol and the Cardinals.

The highly anticipated 2024 Missouri football season is going down the tubes. Forget about the Tigers finding their way into the 12-team national playoff; this team can't even find its way into the end zone. In their last two losses, at Texas A&M and Alabama, MU was outscored by a combined 75-10. And the squad really hasn't played one great game so far this season. The offense was struggling before quarterback Brady Cook's injury, and now it's gotten worse. Much worse.

At 6-2 Missouri has a chance to rally for a 9-3 or 10-2 regular-season mark -- that's the optimistic view -- but given the current state of the offense, why would we be confident? Together, Cook and backup Drew Pyne have made Mizzou's passing attack one of the least accurate in the nation among the 69 power conference programs. A season of great expectations is turning into a great disappointment.

How will the St. Louis Blues compensate for the loss of the injured, do-everything center Robert Thomas? It will be a challenge, but the Blues passed the first test without Thomas by blowing out the Maple Leafs, 5--1, on Thursday in Toronto. In the victory, the Blues displayed just about everything they must do well with Thomas missing. Goaltending, quality depth, and getting impactful play from players that are first-year Blues. And the team's best players have to play to a high level. It was only the first of many games without Thomas, but the Blues went into Toronto and made an emphatic statement.

STLtoday reports the Cardinals are just about set to offer a direct-to-consumer streaming service to the team's fan base. If this is officially green-lighted by MLB -- as expected -- the Cardinals can supplement their arrangement with traditional TV carriers. And the best part is, the historical local-TV blackout rules will go away. Fans will be able to purchase the direct screening without fear of blackout restrictions. It won't matter where they live; the fans will have a new way to access games.

That said, this isn't an optimal time for selling a direct to consumer package. The Cardinals have missed the playoffs five times in the last eight full seasons. They had a dreadful 71-91 season in 2023, and failed to make the postseason for a second year in a row in 2024. The Cardinals are also entering a rebuilding phase that could be moderate or severe, depending on how many veteran salaries are offloaded during the offseason.

Will unhappy or otherwise angry fans want to buy the Cardinals streaming service? Will they take a wait and see approach? Can the Cardinals win them over and count on their business when the team is likely headed for two or three below-average seasons -- or worse? The best marketing is winning. And it might be a while before the Cardinals are ready to win -- and win big -- again. Good luck with the sales pitch.

In today's video, I start off by looking at the Yankees-Dodgers World Series and the predictable narrative about how the matchup proves that only the big-money teams can thrive in major-league baseball. It's simply not true. Since the start of 2002, we've seen 14 different MLB teams win at least one World Series. And over the same time period, 21 of the 30 franchises have captured at least one league pennant.

Having enormous financial resources can be an advantage, but it isn't as simple as it sounds. The Yankees and Dodgers spend immense sums of money on payroll, but can't buy a "dynasty." The Dodgers haven't won a World Series in a full and normal season since 1988. Until this year, the Yankees hadn't appeared in a World Series since 2009. We've seen too many big-spending teams flop ... and we've seen a lot of lower-payroll teams do well.

Over the previous seven World Series coming into this one, 7 of the 14 participants have been ranked in the bottom half of the MLB payroll rankings. And since 1995, this will be only the second World Series matchup that pits two top-five payroll teams.

What does this have to do with the Cardinals? Plenty. The Cardinals will finally get back to the most effective formula of "Moneyball," and that's important. Stupidly squandering money accomplishes nothing. I explain it all in my video

The St. Louis Blues, off to a 4-3 start, must now deal with the extensive absence of Robert Thomas, the all-purpose source of energy and offense. He'll be out for at least six weeks with a fractured ankle, paying a severe price for blocking a shot in Tuesday's loss to Winnipeg.

The Blues already were scrounging for goals with Thomas in the lineup. And now they must find a way to generate sufficient offense without Thomas. He's an essential part of everything the Blues do: top-line center, a top power-play guy, an effective penalty killer, and one of the very best faceoff men in the NHL.

And Thomas provides even more value simply because of his capacity to handle a high volume of ice time. The Blues will now shift into the survival mode, and their ability to limit opponent goals is more important than ever.

The Cardinals hired a new hitting coach, Brant Brown, to replace Turner Ward. Can Brown improve the performance of STL's young hitters who struggle for consistency and don't know how to get out of brutal slumps? What does Brown bring to the job?

1) He's fluent in analytics and the potentially valuable information that can help hitters.

2) He has demonstrated the ability to take a complex subject (data) and simplify it in ways that hitters can understand.

3) Brown, a left-handed hitter, played five seasons of major-league ball and went through the entire experience, good and bad. He had strong power, but too many strikeouts pulled him down.

Wait ... that sounds like Nolan Gorman!

Yes. Exactly.

Brant Brown was Nolan Gorman during his own MLB career. If any coach can relate to -- and fully understand -- the enormity of Gorman's strikeout plague and loss of confidence, it's this new batting coach. And that isn't a negative. It's a positive.

Brown has walked in those cleats. And because of his own career never developed into what it could have been, Brown can learn from his own failure and tap into his own past to help Gorman pivot to a better future.

The Cardinals have hired Jon Jay to be their first base coach for 2025. Jay, a winning and highly respected Cardinal player as the starting CF from 2011-2015, coached for manager Skip Schumaker in Miami but decided to move on when Schumaker and the new Marlins' baseball head of operations decided to go their separate ways. Jay had other options, but he chose to come to St. Louis and work with former Cardinals teammate (and good friend) Daniel Descalso. And Jay welcomed the opportunity to come "home" to this franchise to work for Oli Marmol -- even though there are no guarantees that Marmol will be here past 2025. In a related note, the Cardinals' new hitting coach (Brant Brown) also served as Schumaker's hitting coach in Miami ... hmm ... very intriguing.

What's going on here? Well, the Cardinals just got smarter in the dugout because Jay is a well regarded young major-league coach that already has made a name for himself. He's an excellent teacher and communicator and, like Descalso, understands the importance of creating a positive team culture. And whether Marmol stays as manager here in 2025, there are ways that Jay and Descalso can remain in place with the Cardinals. I'll explain.

As the leader of the project to restore the lost excellence of the St. Louis farm system and player-development expertise, Chaim Bloom has made his first hire, and it's a big one.

Bloom recruited Rob Cerfolio, age 32, from the Cleveland Guardians' front office. Cerfolio, who has the "rising star" reputation within the industry, will bring his skills to the St. Louis baseball operations. His title: Assistant general manager, overseeing player development and performance. During Cerfolio's seasons in Cleveland's front office (2015-2024) , the Guardians have the fourth-best winning percentage in the majors (regular season) and are rank sixth for the most postseason wins.

Because of a booming player-development system, the Guardians have won a lot more games than teams that spend a lot more money on payroll. This is a home-run hire by Bloom.

Since leaving the St. Louis Cardinals -- via trade, free agency, designated for assignment or otherwise let go -- we've seen a long list of players move on, join other teams and compete in a bunch of postseason games. And some have turned into postseason stars including Randy Arozarena, Adolis Garcia, and the latest example, Tommy Edman. What's going on here? Why does this keep happening?