photo: Stan Musial
During this downtime for Major League Baseball and its followers – both fans and writers alike – many of us have looked back into the rich history of the game for topics to discuss and debate.
So it has been at The Cardinal Nation’s free forum, where a thread about the St. Louis Cardinals’ Mount Rushmore turned into an all-time Cardinals player ranking. In doing so, I revisited rating work I last did back in the winter of 2007-2008, when our site unveiled our All-Time Cardinals Top 40 Players. At the time, Albert Pujols still had four years to go with the team and baby-faced Yadier Molina had yet to fully escape Mike Matheny’s shadow.
The topic of the Greatest Cardinals of All Time was reborn in a new form on Friday, when I was contacted by long-time friends Jeff Erickson and Todd Zola of Rotowire. Their site has been running a multimedia series in which they bring in a subject matter expert to join them in a three-team draft of the best players in a chosen MLB team’s history.
The Cardinals are next up on their schedule and I was recruited to participate. It did not take any convincing! The only rules are that we should consider each player’s body of work with St. Louis only. (So a Larry Walker would not be appropriate, for example.)
Rosters consist of nine position players and six pitchers. The hitters would make up a regular team of eight – one each at catcher, first, second and third bases, shortstop and three outfielders – plus a utility player.
We are taping our draft on Saturday evening with the show to be telecast during Sunday’s edition of the Rotowire Fantasy Sports Today show, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. ET on SiriusXM Fantasy Radio. There will also be a follow up article at Rotowire.com. For example, here is the link to their Pirates draft summary.
The gents are nice enough to let their guests draft first, so I will have my preference of every single player in Cardinals team history. As such, the first overall selection will be simple. The downside is that I will not have another turn until picks 6-7 and again at 12-13, etc.
I have developed the sketch of a tentative plan, taking positional scarcity into account, but I invite all readers to stop by TCN’s free forum and offer your advice and counsel. And once the draft is publicized, you can critique my selections, as well!
Bonus for members of The Cardinal Nation
Two St. Louis Cardinals Who May Benefit Most from MLB’s Delay
Now Available! – TCN’s New 2020 Prospect Guide
232 pages, 97,000 words, over 60 player capsules, history and much more – in both PDF and spiral-bound book versions. Foreword by Dan McLaughlin. Order your copy today!
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Brian Walton can be reached via email at brian@thecardinalnation.com or for fastest turnaround, pose your questions on The Cardinal Nation’s members-only forum. Follow Brian on Twitter.
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