Cardinals a sistant hitting coach Daniel Nicolaisen has resigned, president of baseball operations John Mozeliak confirmed to reporters, including . He has accepted a new position as an a sistant coach for the University of Mi si sippi softball team. The Denmark native earned his first big league job this past offseason after two years spent in the Cardinals minor league system. Prior to that, he worked as a softball coach at Seton Hall University. Evidently, he has decided to return to his roots; he grew up playing softball in Denmark. The Cardinals will be promoting minor league hitting coordinator Ru s Steinhorn to fill Nicolaisens spot on the major league coaching staff, at least for the time being. Funnily enough, it was Steinhorn who initially hired Nicolaisen as a minor league coach back in 2020. In other Cardinals news, Mozeliak also confirmed to reporters (including ) that Oliver Marmol will return to manage the club in 2024, the Conor Sheary Jersey final year of his contract. Given the teams disappointing performance this season this will be their first losing campaign since 2007 speculation that Marmols job was in jeopardy began to arise. However, the president of baseball operations didnt mince words, saying, I know hell be back next year. Mozeliak continued, Theres always going to be finger-pointing on what went wrong, what could we have done differently. And that starts with myselfbut Im certainly encouraged with what I see from Oli as a young manager. Indeed, its hard to pin too much of the blame for the Cardinals misfortunes on Marmol. While some have criticized his public communication skills and player relations (RE: his with and his initial about moving off catcher), theres only so much a manager can do when his pitching staff is bleeding runs and so many of his players are underperforming. Moreover, St. Louis recently lost a long-time clubhouse leader when retired, and theyre soon to lose another in . Its understandable why Mozeliak doesnt want to go through another major change in leadership; after all, its only been two years since Marmol took the helm, and he led the team to an excellent finish in 2022. However, that doesnt mean there wont be changes coming to the organization. Mozeliak offered praise for much of his coaching staff, including rookie pitching coach Dusty Blake. At the same time, he acknowledged that adjustments must occur behind the scenes. As , the Cardinals are in the early stages of restructuring their entire player development system, and the team views improving the baseball operations department to be just as important as . Its easy to understand why the Cardinals would want to revamp their player development and baseball operations departments. Several of their top prospects and young players have struggled to perform at the big league level this season, including , , , and . The team has also struggled to make decisions, such as when they briefly moved Contreras to DH and briefly demoted . Worst of all, the front office failed to put together a competitive pitching staff over the offseason, instead relying too heavily on a collection of aging veterans, injury-prone pitchers, and rookies. Suffice it to say, it hasnt worked out. The Cardinals dont need to fire their manager, but clearly, they need to make some changes to addre s everything that has gone wrong in 2023. It seems to be a matter of when, not if, those changes occur. Ron Francis Jersey