The Paul Goldschmidt extension will rightly be scrutinized for its dollars and cents. But is Goldschmidt the type of player who creates value in other ways too?
Looking beyond the dollars and cents of the Paul Goldschmidt extension
The Paul Goldschmidt extension is fine. It isn’t “necessary”
Following Matt Holliday's nine-year reign as the owner of the largest contract in St. Louis Cardinals history, new first baseman Paul Goldschmidt seized the crown yesterday by signing a five-year, $130 million extension with the Cardinals, one which will keep the long-time Arizona Diamondbacks slugger in St. Louis through the 2024 season, during which he…
What the WAR update tells us (and doesn’t tell us) about Yadier Molina
St. Louis Cardinals fans love Yadier Molina. Most fans of most teams love most of their players, so let me re-emphasize this: St. Louis Cardinals fans really love Yadier Molina. This love was different from, say, the love Cardinals fans felt towards Matt Holliday, a very good and very likable baseball player in his own right.…
The 42 Most Valuable Players from Game 6 of the 2011 World Series
Since I started watching baseball in 1996, sixty-four different men have won a Most Valuable Player or Cy Young award as the best player or pitcher in the American or National League. And forty-two different men played in the greatest baseball game I have ever seen. As far as I'm concerned, the latter is thus…
Jordan Hicks signed a four-year contract with the Cardinals yesterday and I am outraged
On Tuesday morning, it was announced that the Cardinals had signed Jordan Hicks to a four-year contract worth $36 million, and while I try to give hyper-intelligent modern front offices the benefit of the doubt, I am having a difficult time wrapping my mind around this one. Jordan Hicks, of course, emerged in 2018 as…
What is the appropriate role for Dexter Fowler in 2019?
In 2016, as the leadoff hitter for the Chicago Cubs, Dexter Fowler contributed a 129 wRC+ for the eventual World Series champions. This mark denotes that the center fielder was 29% better than a league-average hitter, which was a career-best for the soon-to-be free agent, who signed with the St. Louis Cardinals that December. Fowler’s…
Jedd Gyorko as the metaphorical center of the 2019 Cardinals
Jon Jay spent four-plus seasons as the primary center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, with intermittent cameos by others in the starring role, and while he spent most of that time as a solid if not spectacular player, his cataclysmic 2015 was enough to convince the Cardinals to cut bait on the $6.2 million…
Ranking the Cardinals’ Worst Free Agent Signings of the Last 20 Years
As we documented earlier this week, the St. Louis Cardinals have made some very good free agent deals over the last two decades. But they've also made some very, very bad moves. Today, we are going to rank those moves from the most terrible to the not-nearly-as-terrible-but-still-quite-terrible. As a reminder, we will only be looking…
Ranking the Cardinals’ Best Free Agent Signings of the Last 20 Years
If you’ve been near a TV or internet browser in the past few days, you know that Bryce Harper has signed an enormous deal with the Philadelphia Phillies, thus ending any pipe dreams of Harper suiting up for the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals could still sign Dallas Keuchel (as this blog has previously advocated)…
Matt Wieters, Francisco Pena, and the confouding reasons they are locked in a battle for backup catcher
As the number-five overall pick in the 2007 Major League Baseball draft, Matt Wieters was burdened with extraordinary expectations from the moment he joined the Baltimore Orioles organization. According to Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus (and later of the Houston Astros), Wieters was baseball's best prospect entering 2009, ahead of future MLB aces David Price and Madison…
St. Louis Bullpen 