Trevor Bauer would make the 2023 Cardinals a better team, but that would not mean rooting for the Cardinals would be more fun.
Trevor Bauer would not improve (rooting for) the St. Louis Cardinals
Willson Contreras is a no-brainer addition for the St. Louis Cardinals
By and large, the St. Louis Cardinals have been defined not by glaring roster holes but by general adequacy that could use improvement but which is fairly easy at which to squint and justify. Tyler O'Neill, Dylan Carlson, and Lars Nootbaar could use more depth behind them, but it could be fine. Move Tommy Edman…
A look at the potential catching options for the 2023 St. Louis Cardinals
Before his offensive production jumped several levels in the late-aughts and into the early-2010s, an oft-cited claim from manager Tony La Russa about St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina was that he could go hitless for the season and still be valuable to the team because of his defensive production. This was almost certainly hyperbole…
Did Cardinals Twitter run Jeff Albert out of town?
In "Homer at the Bat", from season three of The Simpsons, centenarian Springfield Nuclear Power Plant owner C. Montgomery Burns, moonlighting as the manager of his company's softball team, instructs then-Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Darryl Strawberry, paid a boatload of cash to play on the team in the league final, to hit a home…
A Cardinals fan’s guide to the 2022 World Series
For whom should you root in this year's World Series? What do I know, do whatever you feel like!
The MLB playoffs are whatever you want them to be
The 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers were an unholy juggernaut of baseball dominance--with 111 wins, they defeated their opponents with surgical precision throughout the season, amassing the highest win total of any MLB team since 2001. They lost one of the best free agents of last offseason--shortstop Corey Seager--and replaced him seamlessly with Trea Turner, and…
Bruce Sutter broke the mold
R.I.P. Bruce Sutter (1953-2022)
Why the Cardinals lost
Over the course of their 2022 National League Wild Card Series defeat at the hands of the Philadelphia Phillies, the St. Louis Cardinals saddled Phillies pitchers who have not been Cy Young contenders over the last two seasons with a 5.40 ERA. Against Zack Wheeler, who finished a close second in Cy Young Award balloting…
A look back at the 2011 National League Division Series
Eleven years ago today (specifically, tonight), the lone postseason series ever contested by the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies concluded. Today, the two teams add a new chapter to their postseason history. Only time will tell if their 2022 tilt reaches the heights of 2011, a series filled to the brim with drama…
The greatest Albert Pujols regular season home runs of 2022
A comprehensive ranking of every Albert Pujols bomb from 2022
How the Cardinals match up with the Philadelphia Phillies
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the Philadelphia Phillies team which qualified for the 2022 MLB postseason, the first playoff berth for the franchise since their 102-win 2011 season ended in just about the most crushing possible fashion against the 2011 World Series championship-bound St. Louis Cardinals, is a good baseball team. At 87-74…
Who should be on the Cardinals’ Wild Card Round roster?
On Friday, the Cardinals will begin a (potentially) three-game series at Busch Stadium against the Philadelphia Phillies. For such a brief series with such dramatic stakes--the potential end of the 2022 season and the potential anticlimactic conclusion of two legendary Cardinals careers--those of Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina--selecting the optimal roster is going to be…
A champagne toast to the most meaningless baseball games imaginable
There's something inherently silly and strange about locker room celebrations in sports, something bizarre and contradictory about celebrating sporting greatness by acting like a reckless maniac and consuming some adult beverages that lessen your motor skills. Maybe it makes more sense after a championship, when there will be months until the next game. But following…
Do the Cardinals have a Jeff Albert problem?
In the third inning of Saturday afternoon's 5-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds, the St. Louis Cardinals scored three runs. In the forty-three innings since, the Cardinals have scored just one run, and even that run came via a throw hitting the scoring runner, who himself only reached base via the zombie runner, the automatic…
Navigating a new postseason format and crafting a St. Louis Cardinals postseason rotation
With last night's loss to the New York Mets, a Milwaukee Brewers franchise now doomed to be cursed by their non-tendering of first baseman Daniel Vogelbach, who drove in a run for the Mets last night, fell eight games behind the St. Louis Cardinals for first place in the National League Central division. As of…
The Greatest Twenty Teammates of Albert Pujols
When Albert Pujols debuted in Major League Baseball, there was an active player named Jesse Orosco, who was born on April 21, 1957. When he retires at the end of this season, the Majors will include Baltimore Orioles infielder Gunnar Henderson, who was born on June 29, 2001, a day by which Albert Pujols had…
Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright are St. Louis
Tonight, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright will make history, together, in their hometown.
Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, and Tommy Edman are on the verge of Cardinals history
The 2004 St. Louis Cardinals have the most wins in franchise history among seasons where most of the league's top players were not on active duty during World War II. If the 2022 Cardinals, a team which is already in good position to make the postseason, were to win the final twenty-four games of their…
Why David Ross was right to pitch to Albert Pujols
Entering Sunday afternoon's game against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Chicago Cubs stood at 56-77. While not literally mathematically eliminated from the postseason, the Cubs' playoff odds rounded to 0.0% and even the most optimistic of Cubs loyalist was fully aware that the season was a lost cause for them. At the risk of sounding…
The Jordan Montgomery trade just might be John Mozeliak’s masterpiece
Ever since Joel Embiid and the Philadelphia 76ers memeified the notion of sports teams "trusting the process"--the ideology by which they construct their rosters, there are some corners of the sports analysis world which have decided to completely eschew results. On some level, this is the wise move--if I'm playing poker and I'm dealt a…
Matt Holliday’s last weekend
This weekend, Matt Holliday will be inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame. Here is a look back to 2016, at the last weekend that was an extended tribute to him.
The historic last dance of Albert Pujols
Because, during the height of COVID-19 lockdowns and its total absence of televised sports, everybody with even the most casual interest in the NBA, and even a bunch of people who didn't, gravitated towards watching The Last Dance, a perfectly watchable documentary produced by ESPN Films and Netflix about the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls. Because of…
Albert Pujols and the summer of endless good vibes
Oh my God, Albert Pujols hit two home runs in the biggest win of the St. Louis Cardinals' season. In 2022. I was twelve years old when Albert Pujols debuted. I had yet to graduate from elementary school. Albert Pujols was Major League teammates with four men--Chuck Finley, Jeff Fassero, Bobby Bonilla, and Mark McGwire--who…
Paul DeJong is taking Midwestern grievance culture to unparalleled levels
A deeper look into why Paul DeJong simply cannot stop crushing New York baseball teams
A wholehearted embrace of the Matt Carpenter Redemption Tour (except for this weekend)
One of the two or three greatest Cardinals of the 2010s makes his first trip back to Busch Stadium since becoming the greatest baseball player in the world tonight
Cardinals make a riskier trade for a veteran lefty than yesterday, flip Harrison Bader for Jordan Montgomery
My first reaction to the late-breaking trade which saw the St. Louis Cardinals sending starting center fielder Harrison Bader to the New York Yankees for starting pitcher Jordan Montgomery is that I'm mad because they ruined my "the Cardinals didn't do enough to improve the starting rotation at the deadline" post I was just getting…
José Quintana is the exact low-risk rental the Cardinals love (and you should like)
The problem with a couple weeks' worth of Juan Soto trade rumors and discussion, not the least of which were propagated by this site, is that virtually any other trade is going to seem like a half-measure by comparison. Even if the Cardinals had, say, jumped into the Luis Castillo or Frankie Montas bidding wars…
You absolutely do not have to respect Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt’s decision
Yes, I have to accept their decision. I absolutely do not have to respect it.
Nolan Arenado, Paul Goldschmidt, and Austin Romine simply don’t want it enough
It's one thing to perform poorly. It's another thing to not be physically able to perform. It's a whole other issue when you choose not to perform.
Okay, let’s build a Juan Soto trade
Guys like Juan Soto don't come cheap
The value of two-plus seasons of Juan Soto in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform
A team doesn't need to have Juan Soto for a decade to get a ton of value out of having Juan Soto
What should the Cardinals offer for Juan Soto?
Juan Soto is one of the greatest players in baseball, and the cost of trading for him would likely reflect that
The 20 Greatest Living Baseball Players
Where does Albert Pujols rank among the twenty greatest living baseball players? Spoiler alert: Somewhere!
Albert Pujols, Corey Dickerson, and the paradox of efficiency
Before I start discussing two members of the 2022 St. Louis Cardinals, I will begin in the time and place where you surely assumed this would begin--the college football realignment landscape of a decade ago. Technically, this was the realignment landscape of major college athletic conferences in general, but the reality was the purpose of…
How late-stage Mike Matheny helped to build the 2022 St. Louis Cardinals for the better
You gotta love a happy accident
Brendan Donovan and Jack Flaherty: A tale of two teammates and an evolving culture
In which one Cardinal tried to dig out of controversy, and another steered right into it
Nolan Gorman prepares to usher in a new generation of St. Louis Cardinals baseball players
Tonight, Nolan Gorman will (likely) become the first Cardinal born in the 2000s. A look back at each decade's first ever St. Louis Cardinal.
Was Albert Pujols the greatest Position Player Pitcher in history?
I watched almost zero minutes of the St. Louis Cardinals game on Sunday night. I was busy making and eating dinner, and by the time I got to checking the score of the baseball game, it was uncompetitive and there were three Games Seven in the NBA and NHL postseasons available to watch that night…
A brief history of St. Louis’s greatest sporting triumphs over every major North American sports market
Tonight, the St. Louis Blues will square off against the Colorado Avalanche in Game 1 of the National Hockey League's Western Conference Semifinal. And if the Blues defeat the 2021-22 President's Trophy winners, awarded to the team with the league's highest points total, it will without question be the greatest St. Louis over Denver triumph…
Where does Nolan Gorman fit in with the 2022 St. Louis Cardinals?
After entering 2022 with already-high prospect expectations, St. Louis Cardinals minor leaguer Nolan Gorman is crushing baseballs at alarming rates. In 95 plate appearances with the AAA Memphis Redbirds, Gorman has 11 home runs and a 1.067 OPS. A third baseman by trade, Gorman has played exclusively at second base this season while in the…
The confounding Wednesday suspensions hypocrisy
Let me be very clear: I hate hit-by-pitches. They are an unavoidable part of baseball, of course, and most of them are unintentional and relatively harmless, but in a perfect world, pitchers simply would not throw baseballs that hit pitchers. I hate when guys on my favorite team get hit; I hate when guys on…
Is Moisés Gómez the best player in professional baseball? An investigation
If you had never heard of Moisés Gómez a few days ago, you were certainly not the only person to read this article who hadn't, a thing I can say with absolute certainty because I, person actively writing this article, will eventually read the article, and I hadn't heard of him. Admittedly, I am not…
How the 2022 St. Louis Cardinals rotation stacks up to a former World Series champion
I'm not going to sugarcoat it (too much): I am not optimistic about the St. Louis Cardinals' starting rotation. It is the reason that I am predicting the Cardinals to finish a few games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central this season despite a superior starting lineup. But it's also fun, and…
The 2022 St. Louis Cardinals and the next generational passage
On September 23, 2005, 22,472 fans gathered into Milwaukee's Miller Park to watch the hometown Brewers face the St. Louis Cardinals on a Friday night. The Cardinals had already clinched their second consecutive National League Central title, while the Brewers had recently been officially eliminated from Wild Card contention, so the stakes were minimal--if I…
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a “fan favorite” signing
I will start off by acknowledging my prior history--I was and am extremely skeptical of the St. Louis Cardinals' signing of Albert Pujols for reasons that I have published in the past and about which I will expand upon in a moment. But it would be willful ignorance to pretend that what the Cardinals did…
A 2022 (mostly just two teams in the) NL Central preview
The 2022 National League Central. Five teams enter. Three teams try to compete. Two teams actually compete. A division preview.
The 2022 St. Louis Cardinals Are Better Than You Think
With the Major League Baseball owners’ lockout officially in the rearview mirror of the baseball world, and Opening Day now just over a week away, the St. Louis Cardinals enter the 2022 season in a familiar place. Coming off of their third consecutive playoff appearance and second straight 90+ win campaign in seasons where Covid…
Albert Pujols and the myth of the burned bridge
Albert Pujols never had to forgive St. Louis because he never felt mad at St. Louis because he's smarter than us.
A borderline playoff team is worse now
The argument for the St. Louis Cardinals signing Albert Pujols is entirely sentimental. There is a reason that Albert Pujols was never seriously tied to another Major League Baseball team this off-season—his value is entirely based on what he did over a decade ago for the team which signed him. He is the slowest runner…
Who is the most likely player to keep the St. Louis Cardinals WAR streak alive?
For each of the last 11 seasons, a different Cardinal has led the team in Wins Above Replacement. Who is the most likely to extend the streak in 2022?
St. Louis Bullpen 