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Oliver Marmol will be introduced Monday morning as the 51st manager in Cardinals history, multiple sources confirmed to the Post-Dispatch on Sunday night.

Marmol, 35, spent the past three seasons as the team’s bench coach and trusted aide of previous manager Mike Shildt. A Florida native who went to high school in Orlando, Marmol first joined the major-league staff in before the 2017 season, just 10 years after being a sixth-round pick by the Cardinals. Considered the favorite internally for the spot after Shildt’s firing less than two weeks ago, Marmol will be a thirty-something manager who inherits a team set to celebrate its final season with a forty-something battery. He will be the only active manager in the majors younger than 40.

The Cardinals requested permission from Major League Baseball to make a significant announcement on the eve of the World Series, which opens here in Houston on Tuesday. The team announced a news conference for 10 a.m. Monday.

The front office declined comment Sunday night, as did other team officials. The club has been bunkered in for the past week and declining public comment as it conducted interviews for the manager position and explored at least one outside addition for that new manager’s coaching staff. Marmol did not reply to a message.

Former Cardinal players Skip Schumaker and Matt Holliday were among the candidates who expressed interest in the manager’s position. Schumaker was the Padres’ associate manager — a position above bench coach — this season and is considered a rising managerial candidate in the industry. The Cardinals contacted Schumaker to discuss a return to the club and what his role could be, two team sources confirmed.

Schumaker declined comment.

Marmol’s promotion opens the bench spot or its equivalent. The previous two bench coaches for the Cardinals, Shildt and David Bell, moved from it to manager positions.

The Cardinals spent some time this past week discussing multi-year offers with some coaches who have expiring contracts. John Mozeliak, president of baseball operations, said he hoped to bring back the entire coaching staff. Pitching coach Mike Maddux and hitting Jeff Albert already are signed through 2022. Stubby Clapp, who won championships as the Cardinals’ Class AAA manager and was considered a candidate for the major-league job, is one of the coaches the team approached with a new contract.

During this season, Cardinals officials expressed the possible benefit of adding another former player to the coaching staff. As Marmol and the Cardinals explore possibilities for his coaching staff, Holliday will be discussed, a source confirmed.

The manager position was left vacant suddenly when the Cardinals fired Shildt on Oct. 14, eight days after the team’s wild-card playoff loss and less than a month after the team set a club record with 17 consecutive wins. In his three full seasons as manager, the Cardinals reached the postseason each year.

Shildt, who became manager in July 2018, received votes for the National League’s manager of the year award in all four seasons he had the position, including winning the award in 2019 and receiving nods this season. During meetings that followed the wild-card loss, Shildt expressed concern about the direction of the major-league team, and the front office felt the clash of viewpoints was irreconcilable. A source said that Shildt “pushed too hard� and was fired for it.

Shildt was set to interview recently for the manager position in San Diego, and other teams are interested in interviewing Shildt for a variety of coaching or development roles.

In the statement he read a few days after his firing, Shildt traced his 18 years with the Cardinals, rising from scout to minor-league coach, minor-league manager to the majors, and as he thanked the people who he worked with, he lauded Marmol.

He said his bench coach “has my deepest and most trusted respect.�

An infielder at the College of Charleston, Marmol, who goes by “Oli,� was selected in the sixth round of the 2007 draft. The person who scouted and signed him also kindled hopes of being a coach — Shildt.

Marmol played four seasons in the Cardinals’ system, reaching High-A Palm Beach. On the day of his release, he told the Cardinals he’d like to try coaching. He had been struck by a talk Tony La Russa gave on the back fields and how he heard it not as a player, but as someone who felt the urge to teach.

By the end of the same month his playing career ended, Marmol’s coaching career began as part of the Fourth Coach program — a mentorship initiative by the Cardinals.

Shildt and former field coordinator Mark DeJohn were on the same staff.

“Oli is the type of person who could move up to the next level and he’d be prepared for it because of what he’s doing today,� farm director Gary LaRocque told the Post-Dispatch in March 2020. “He is focused on what he is doing well today, and what he can do to help him be better tomorrow. He gets it. He’s able to be a good teacher because of it.�

In 2012, less than two years after taking the field as a player, Marmol was the manager for rookie-level Johnson City. That was the first of three levels at which he managed before vaulting to the majors.

When Shildt took over as manager, he named Marmol his bench coach and said he would fit the role to the person, not ask Marmol to take on what the title traditionally implied. Marmol once described a game as bench coach as “a 3½-hour conversation� with Shildt. As bench coach, the bilingual Marmol was an avenue between the manager and all the different facets of the clubhouse — from analytics to coaches to players. At times Marmol became a bridge, especially in times of troubled waters.

Sitting outside the Cardinals’ spring training clubhouse in March 2020, just days before the pandemic closed camp and delayed the season, Marmol considered a question about his rising profile and potential future as a manager.

“You create a culture, and you surround yourself with people who — rise up to meet that culture,� Marmol said under the Florida sun. “A culture either pushes you up or pushes you out. Having that growth mindset of wanting to learn more, never being satisfied is what it takes, or you just won’t fit in. … There are people who want to keep pushing, pushing the boundaries of what is out there. I lean toward that. When it comes to leadership, there are different areas that when you put it all together your more of a complete leader, as a bench coach or whatever position you’re in.�

Sports columnist Ben Frederickson contributed to this report.