No. 13: St. Louis Cardinals

Who are the 10 best Cardinals ever?

On the road for WHY WE LOVE BASEBALL, I met a very nice young man—probably 12 or 13 years old—who asked me to name the 10 best Cardinals ever. I couldn’t do it very well off the top of my head, but I figure that with St. Louis coming off a super-disappointing season and nobody really all that sure what to make of the team this year, now would be a good time to put a little list together for real.

Now, it’s important to say that this is ONLY for players when they’re on the Cardinals. So, for example, Johnny Mize is in the Baseball 100. But I’d say barely half of his total career value was with the Cardinals, and so he might not be among the top 10 Cardinals of all time. We’ll see.

OK, Jacob, this is for you:

No. 10: Yadier Molina

I couldn’t see any real way to get Molina AND Ted Simmons on this list, so I had to choose one over the other. By Cardinals bWAR, Simmons is actually slightly ahead (45 to 42), even though he played in many fewer games… this is because he was a much, much better hitter than Molina. But in the end, I think Molina’s defense and leadership and persistence carry the day.