The top of the Hall of Fame ballot for 2021 is filled with feel-bad stories. Scott Rolen is a refreshing exception to that.
Scott Rolen–A perfect Hall of Fame candidate for 2021
The indefensibility of letting Kolten Wong walk
You may have noticed that this is my first time weighing in on a moment which has now passed—whether the St. Louis Cardinals should pick up a $12.5 million option for 2021 on the contract of second baseman Kolten Wong, which it was revealed this afternoon that the Cardinals were not going to do. And…
When you stop believing the lie
Justin Turner has offered a spot-on metaphor for the lie Major League Baseball fed us in 2020.
Let’s take a deep breath about Randy Arozarena
Do you remember Bo Hart? I remember Bo Hart. I could never forget Bo Hart. Bodhi J. Hart was a 26 year-old second baseman, four years removed from being a 33rd round draft pick, languishing in the minor leagues for the St. Louis Cardinals organization when, in 2003, an injury to Miguel Cairo forced the…
Bob.
I always viewed Bob Gibson as the first modern baseball player. Like all St. Louis Cardinals fans, I grew up revering Stan Musial, even though I had never seen him play. Not only had I never seen him play, but I couldn't even comprehend the idea that he really did play. He seemed like an…
Why isn’t Jack Flaherty starting Game 1 of the Wild Card Round?
He entered the season as the ace. By many measures, he was the team's best pitcher in 2020. Why is Jack Flaherty being relegated to Game 3?
Everyone is going to hate us so much–a Cardinals/Padres playoff preview
We are at least half a decade removed from the peak of people hating the St. Louis Cardinals. Also, the Cardinals were better from 2011 through 2015 than they were from 2016 through 2020. I wonder if the two are related. Probably not. They probably just managed to overcome the objectively bad and evil things…
The Cardinals’ All-Time “Second Best Team” Team
In the middle of the St. Louis Cardinals' deeply annoying loss yesterday afternoon to the Cincinnati Reds, news broke that Albert Pujols had tied Willie Mays on the all-time Major League Baseball home runs list. As Pujols's record chases tends to do, it invited plenty of historical comparisons and general remembraces of the Cardinals legend.…
The six tiers of Cardinals transaction revisionism
Some players would be virtually impossible for the St. Louis Cardinals to have on their team. Take Alex Bregman, for instance. The Houston Astros superstar third baseman was drafted in 2015 before the Cardinals ever had a draft pick, he was never considered a player realistically on the trading block, and he signed an extension…
Lou Brock and joy
Lou Brock played his final game for the St. Louis Cardinals over forty years ago. Most of the people who will read this post do not remember seeing Lou Brock play live. On Sunday, Lou Brock died at the age of 81, following several years of failing health, but his legacy in the hearts and…
The case for standing pat for the trade deadline
As a general rule, I tend to want my sports teams to focus more on the future than the present. I don’t think this is an inherently right or wrong point of view—it’s a reflection of my own arbitrary tastes and preferences. But this year, I think I’m right. And I invite all temporary bandwagoners…
A Cardinals fan’s guide to watching the Blues since they’re actually playing this weekend
As of right now, the St. Louis Cardinals are scheduled to play their sixth and seventh games of the 2020 season on Saturday. But, given recent events, at the very least, it is probably time to plan for contingencies. On each of the last two Fridays, Cardinals games in the coming weekend were cancelled, and,…
Rob Manfred isn’t the problem, and that’s the problem
What a year that weekend was. There was already plenty of reason for pessimism in baseball, with the waves of positive tests that had already effectively shut down the Miami Marlins. And then on Friday, news broke that multiple St. Louis Cardinals had tested positive for COVID-19, forcing the cancellation of the team's Friday game…
Jack Flaherty ain’t going away
I think the Tommy Pham trade broke us. Tommy Pham was a rarity for the St. Louis Cardinals—an outspoken player. And then, at the trade deadline in 2018, he was traded. And we collectively assumed the two were related. That the St. Louis Cardinals, assumed to be a particularly small-c conservative organization even by the…
The best-case scenario of a 60-game St. Louis Cardinals season
The Los Angeles Dodgers will probably lose some games this season. The Baltimore Orioles will probably win some games this season. But an undefeated or winless season is more on the table than it ever has been before. The odds of either of these things happening are in the one in a trillion range, but…
So it’s come to this–a 2020 MLB season preview
Uh, I guess we’re doing this? The idea that baseball is going to happen is weird. I’ve been clear about the fact that I’m not convinced it should happen. Even aside from the ethical questions of devoting so many resources to a recreational activity that puts its participants at risk during a global pandemic in…
Just cancel the season already
This weekend, three St. Louis Cardinals players were revealed to have tested positive for COVID-19. I hesitate to limit this to three; hopefully I'll remember to update this post in the event that this number increases. It seems like there is a decent chance of that. Of the three players who have tested positive, two…
The Cardinals’ All-Alphabet Team
There are twenty-six letters of the alphabet. There are twenty-six players on a Major League Baseball active roster. So I had an idea. How good of a baseball team could I compile in which every player’s last name begins with a different letter? It’s pretty simple—I get one guy whose last name begins with A.…
St. Louis Bullpen is having a St. Louis-themed e-trivia night. Come play with us.
On Tuesday, June 30, 2020, at 7 p.m., the finest minds in the St. Louis area will be gathering to engage in a trivia contest to determine who has supreme knowledge of St. Louis sports. And those of us who weren't invited to that are gonna have a trivia night of our own. Sign up…
The New All-Century Team
In 1999, Major League Baseball unveiled its All-Century Team to commemorate the best players of the 20th century. This was a watershed moment in baseball analysis for me—in an era where balloting was done by paper and submitted via mail, my dad was insistent that the ballot be taken seriously, and thus I, a ten-year old,…
Five terrible St. Louis Cardinals who lasted longer than the Confederacy
In the wake of the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, the United States of America is engaging in a long-overdue reevaluation of our history of racism. To say that this was provoked by the Floyd murder, while technically true, undersells the story. This was the culmination of years of protests…
The Summer of ’98 Made Me a Baseball Fan
The first baseball game I ever attended was on September 5, 1998. I was 6 years old at the time, and went to the ballpark with my dad to see the hometown St. Louis Cardinals take on his favorite team growing up, the Cincinnati Reds. I’m sure my dad was secretly hoping I would become…
If Bill DeWitt Jr. isn’t lying to you, he should prove it
I do not personally know how wealthy Bill DeWitt Jr. is, because I do not know him, and because I have never seen his financial records. The first result of a Google search of his name indicates that he is worth $4 billion, as are most of the successive results, but again, I do not personally know…
The Cardinals Hall of Fame’s slow descent into irrelevance
I was born five and a half years after Keith Hernandez’s tenure with the St. Louis Cardinals came to an end. I was far too young to have watched Keith Hernandez finishing out his career with the New York Mets and Cleveland Indians. All I have is the historical record of who Keith Hernandez was.…
The Greatest Cardinal championship belt
Asking who the greatest St. Louis Cardinal is at a given moment can be a bit of a tricky question because, honestly, it's hard to weigh the factors to call somebody the greatest. But I want to try it anyway. One easy solution would be to look at the team's leader in Wins Above Replacement…
At some point, baseball isn’t worth it
My favorite part of watching football is when the quarterback throws a ball in a spot where only the receiver can catch it and the receiver defies what we think we know about acrobatics to complete the reception. My least favorite part of watching football is the unavoidable fact that the sport is destroying its…
The eight greatest unmade “Last Dance”-style St. Louis sports documentaries
That ESPN’s documentary series The Last Dance, a ten-part recollection of the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls, has become a worldwide phenomenon is a perfect storm of events. We are in the middle of an international pandemic that has stopped all sports dead in their tracks, it is largely the story of possibly the most popular athlete in…
Why the Cardinals shouldn’t sign Albert Pujols (besides the obvious reason)
Willie McGee was my fisrt least favorite baseball player. Yes, I am aware that Willie McGee is, for a certain generation of St. Louis Cardinals fans, a beloved figure. I am aware that, while we as a collective fan base generally overrate McGee, he had a few very good seasons with the Cardinals, including his…
The Yadier Molina speculation is probably much ado about nothing
Before I dig deeper into this post, regarding rumors first circulated by Marly Rivera of ESPN.com that St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina is open to playing for a new team in 2021 if he is not able to agree to terms on a new contract with the only team on which he has played…
The St. Louis Cardinals All-World Team
The vast majority of St. Louis Cardinals players have been people born and raised in the United States, because the vast majority of all MLB players have been born and raised in the United States. But the demographics of the sport have become increasingly diverse over the years, which is great not only if you…
What if John Mozeliak had perfect knowledge of the MLB Draft?
It would be difficult to refer to John Mozeliak's tenure at the head of the St. Louis Cardinals' front office as anything but a resounding success. His teams have made the postseason in seven of twelve seasons and won a World Series, appearing in another. The Cardinals have never had a losing season during his…
Michael Jordan, antiquated basketball player, was a modern baseball player
Like millions of other sports-starved people, I eagerly anticipated the first two episodes of The Last Dance, ESPN's ten-part documentary mini-series about the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls. Naturally, most of the show's focus is on the team's greatest superstar, Michael Jordan. The first two episodes, which debuted to huge ratings on Sunday night, were generally strong. So…
Could the 2011 Cardinals beat the 2020 Baltimore Orioles?
A popular story, repeated throughout the years involving countless different players to a point where I've chosen to not believe any of them actually happened, goes something along these lines: a newspaper reporter tracks down a legendary former player and asks him, "How do you think you'd fare if you were playing baseball today?" The…
Which MLB franchise has the greatest all-time team? (Part 3)
If you haven't read the first two parts of this series, you can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. I have assembled thirty of the greatest baseball teams imaginable. I have set ground rules and parameters for these teams and my wildest fantasies about allowing the greats of multiple generations to square off…
Which MLB franchise has the greatest all-time team? (Part 2)
If you haven't read the first part of this series, you can read it here. These thirty super-teams were assembled under the language of Wins Above Replacement. To repeat phrasing I’ve used before, WAR is an imperfect stat, but its greatest strengths are that it is intuitive and it is comprehensive. If you showed the…
Which MLB franchise has the greatest all-time team? (Part 1)
If you ask somebody with only a very peripheral level of knowledge about Major League Baseball which franchise's greatest players would create the best all-time team, most would say the New York Yankees. If you asked a casual fan the same question, most would say the New York Yankees. Most of you are probably saying…
This…is…St. Louis Cardinals Popular Game Show!
In a game show format that many people are saying resembles that of the popular syndicated television show Jeopardy!, John and Turp are joined by NBC Sports writer Drew Silva and Viva El Birdos writer Gabe Simonds, with Turp jumping in as contestant and John serving as host. https://anchor.fm/the-st-louis-bullpen-show/episodes/This---is---St--Louis-Cardinals-Popular-Game-Show-ecc0no As always, check out the podcast…
The twenty greatest Stadium Gods
Last week, apropos of very little, I wrote about the greatest players at each major professional baseball stadium in St. Louis. The next day, I decided to take my extremely cool, not at all nerdy curiosity a level further and figure out the best player at every MLB stadium. I didn't dig quite as deep…
The greatest player at every St. Louis major professional baseball stadium
Some of the younger readers of this website have only known professional baseball in St. Louis at one stadium. I’ve seen it at two. Some of you have seen it at three. There are some living people who have seen and remember baseball at four, but anything beyond that goes past living memory of St.…
What’s aged the best and the worst about Ken Burns’s “Baseball”
As a person who devotes large amount of my time to writing about baseball on the internet, the whole "social distancing" thing that we are expected to (and should) do to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus probably comes a bit easier to me than it does to most, but it is still a…
Let’s invent a crazy hypothetical Major League Baseball season
Baseball isn’t going to start on time. It probably isn’t going to start until decently after “on time”. At this point, I think we’re probably more likely to have Major League Baseball not play in 2020 than we are to have it play in May. This isn’t pure fatalism, and to be clear, I do think there…
Why is Spring Training baseball still being played?
I can’t come up with a good rationalization for this. To put the well-being of players and fans at risk is a callous, irresponsible approach. Serious measures should be taken to combat Coronavirus, and the scientific consensus indicates that large public events such as sporting events should be delayed. All of the talk over the…
It is time for Dylan Carlson
With Saturday's bizarre news that semi-veteran St. Louis Cardinals utility bench player Yairo Munoz has left the Cardinals organization, the Cardinals find themselves with an open roster spot on the team's MLB bench. Munoz wasn't simply a Spring Training invite--he is a man who spent nearly the entire 2018 and 2019 seasons on the Cardinals…
Nine MLB superstars Dylan Carlson is guaranteed to be better than
Dylan Carlson has been obliterating baseballs in Spring Training as a non-roster invite for the St. Louis Cardinals, and that's awesome. But there is a part of me that gives pause to the acclaimed prospect not because I don't think he's going to be good, but because I'm not sure that he's going to be that good.…
Should Jack Flaherty be the Cardinals opening day starter in 2020?
Should Jack Flaherty start the first game of the next season for the Cardinals?
The Cardinals should sign a hypothetical, above-average hitting outfielder
In sharp contrast to the last few off-seasons, Major League Baseball free agency largely resolved itself rather quickly during the 2019-20 iteration. Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Anthony Rendon were off the market by early December, and each had a pretty penny to show for it. For the health of baseball, particularly for those of…
The St. Louis Bullpen Show: The Brad Miller Power Hour
John and Turp discuss the Cardinals' signing of infielder Brad Miller, whether the Cardinals should have topped the Dodgers' offer for Mookie Betts (17:55), which Negro Leagues player would translate the best to the modern day St. Louis Cardinals (33:00), and participate in a game of Cardinals and Oscar trivia (51:44). Remember to check out…
The trade the Cardinals should have made on Tuesday night
Note: This post was written under the assumption that Mookie Betts was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Last night, Jon Heyman reported that the Boston Red Sox are trying to reconfigure the trade. Because I don't like the idea of letting 2,000+ words go to complete waste, this post is going to assume the…
The St. Louis Bullpen Show: There are no more outfielders, only DHs
Having problems with listening on the website? Check us out on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and/or Radio Public. https://anchor.fm/the-st-louis-bullpen-show/episodes/There-are-no-more-outfielders--only-DHs-eai37u
A piece of millennial scum reviews the Whiteyball documentary “Birds of a Different Game”
Speaking as somebody born after the heyday of the "Whiteyball" era of St. Louis Cardinals baseball, the high-flying Cardinals teams of yesteryear have long been a source both of fascination and mild annoyance for me. On one hand, discourse about the team brings out some of my "Ok Boomer"-iest tendencies. In the build-up to last…
