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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
St. Louis Bullpen 