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The author picks the Astros as the team of the decade, but a BA writer likes the Cardinals. No obvious and clear answer.
I'm partial to the Cardinals' case. Third most wins during the decade. Metronomic consistency, typically achieved through player development and shrewd trading.
They had the high highs of the other World Series champions without any of the low lows of, say, the Giants or Red Sox https://t.co/oJyGwyKTva
— Matt Eddy (@MattEddyBA) November 2, 2019
Using a scoring system I completely stole from Bill James, I present to you the official Team of the Decade standings
The Giants and Dodgers are the winners, though I will note that my favorite finished a strong third😀
Wild cards (WC) must have reached LDS to receive points pic.twitter.com/6d88wgCris
— Matt Eddy (@MattEddyBA) November 2, 2019
Cool to see teams like the Royals, Rangers, Nationals and Astros ahead of the Yankees and Cubs. If only the Red Sox were down a few pegs……
Astros are only the team of the second half of the decade. Personally I rank World Series wins high whenever gauging great teams. A great regular season team that loses the World Series knocks it down a few notches. A good case in point with the Cardinals is the 2004 team.
So the Giants are a solid choice for team of the decade. But a good case can be made for others.
And as has been pointed out, and debated some on Twitter as well, what about poor seasons? This ranking is based solely on how high you fly. But including every season with the bad seasons watering down the good is another way to look at it. But if you want to do that, you probably just use total decade wins, then maybe add bonus points for World Series appearances and World Championships.
Personally, I take less stock in the
crapshootplayoff results than others. Getting hot for a couple of weeks doesn’t make you a great team any more than losing to said hot team makes you a mediocre one. 2004’s Cards were a great example. They had potentially 5 Hall of Fame caliber players in that lineup, three of whom had MVP caliber seasons. The pitching staff was led much of the year by a surefire Cardinals Hall of Famer. The bullpen was very good. They beat a fantastic Astros team in the NLCS. The Red Sox that year had Schilling and Pedro, who was on the decline at that point, and known PED cheats Ortiz and Ramirez. If the Cards and Sox had played 162 times that year the Cards would have won 90 games, IMO.Anyway, the point being…the Giants got the 3 titles and that’s important but as an entire book of work, I’d put the Dodgers and Cards right there with them. At least they weren’t tanking like the Red Sox and Astros.
If we are going to discount the postseason then the Yankees, Dodgers, and Cards were the the three best teams of the decade but I am still going with the Giants. Winning one world series in a decade might be a fluke but winning three is not a fluke. They had a great core for a few years and a HOF manager.
I’m not discounting the postseason. You take your chances with the postseason every year and sometimes it works out better for you than others. The 2004 and 2005 Cards teams were far better than 2006, but 2006 won the title. The 2013 team was better than the 2011 team but the 2011 flag is flying. Anyway, the point isn’t that winning a World Series is meaningless…but to me it’s more of a tiebreaker than the shut and closed case.
On a slight side note, I’ve always been a small playoff guy. I dislike the Wild Card and don’t even like having three divisions. If it were up to me it would be two divisions, no interleague, division winners only in the Championship Series and then the World Series. This new system rewards middling play and fans just eat up the narrative that the “best” team won because they got hot for three weeks in a thirty week season.
It would be interesting to have a chart like this for the 2000’s. We would add 1 more World Series, 1 pennant, and 6 more division titles, including 2 100 win seasons. That’s a pretty awesome run!!
The Cardinals may not be the team of the decade, but they are clearly the “Team of the Central Division” since its creation in 1994.
“The Cardinals now have as many NL Central Division titles as the four other current teams combined.”
Team of the Decade
First Place
Three World Series Titles
Giants
Second Place
Two World Series Titles
Red Sox
Third Place
One World Series Title
Cardinals, Royals, Cubs, Astros, NationalsThose are teams of the decade in their proper places.
I have to go Giants. True, sometimes the “not best team” that season gets hot and wins the WS, but they had to be good enough through 162 games to get to the playoffs in the first place.
This is looking at Players of the Decade, not teams. An interesting read, including some names that otherwise may have slipped through the cracks. No Cardinals are anywhere to be found – unless you count Edwin Jackson’s MLB-worst 4.83 ERA this past 10 years.
Most underrated player of the 2010s? Best pitcher who never won the Cy Young? Best postseason hitter?
As part of @TheAthletic's 2010s week, @jaysonst hands out his MLB Best of the Decade Awards 🏆https://t.co/PrK4OF01TC
— The Athletic MLB (@TheAthleticMLB) November 26, 2019
The Athletic’s All-MLB Team of the Decade has a full rotation and seven relievers. One of the latter is Andrew Miller. No other Cardinals.
Will Leitch picks the Giants as his team of the decade, but I disagree with his logic putting the Cubs ahead of the Cardinals.
If this was called "EVENT of the Decade", then OK, I can see the Cubs ahead of #stlcards. Otherwise, no. STL won 72 more games, won more NL pennants and had more CS appearances. https://t.co/HNQZWlTdXj
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) December 19, 2019
For the decade the Cardinals and cubs had the same number of WS victories, the Cardinals played in more postseasons, and the Cardinals won many more regular season games. But because the Cardinals were clearly the better team for the previous century, that gives the cubs the edge in this decade? Yeah right.
Going into the ’20s, the Cubs look to be trending down while the Cardinals seem to be on a bit of an upward trend. Hard to say though – things might look different next year at this time.
Long time Baseball America staffer Jim Callis, who now works for MLB, came up with his 10 best farm systems of the decade. He ranked the Cardinals no. 7 despite the fact they produced more 5 WAR players than any other organization – 19.
It seems that like Will Leitch, who did MLB’s teams of the decade, Callis focused on the big names (stars developed), and downgraded consistency. This is a point several posters here have made over time.
https://www.mlb.com/marlins/news/mlb-top-farm-systems-of-decade
There are and will be many “decade stories” of the teens as we head into the twenties. Rick Hummel of the PD did a piece about the “Decade in Review” and top headlines… #1 was the most exciting game in Cardinal history. The two strike triple by Freese knocked me over in a state of frenzy. The Freese extra-inning homer in the same game was simply surreal. I thought about all other Card fans in a tizzy during that game.
Down to their final strike in the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, the Cardinals rallied to tie Texas on a two-run triple by St. Louisan David Freese. Two innings later, Freese won that game with a home run to dead center. One day later, Freese’s two-run double in the first inning sparked the Cardinals to a 6-2 win in Game 7 and the 11th World Series title in club history.
Is still get goosebumps remembering how I felt watching that game. Heck it still lingers to this day.
Another decade set of honors.
Molina over Posey as the Catcher of the Decade per the Fielding Bible. #stlcards https://t.co/A5vNKaURUq
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) December 31, 2019
Another point to be made here. Paul Goldschmidt is the top fielding first baseman of the last decade. His first season with the #stlcards was not his best with the bat, but his addition improved the entire infield and has not received enough attention, IMO. https://t.co/A5vNKaURUq
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) December 31, 2019
Today's announcement of Paul Goldschmidt as The Fielding Bible's first baseman of the decade led me to collect my thoughts about his positive impact on the 2019 #stlcards and specifically his fellow infielders. (free) https://t.co/3nj7S7LQG6 pic.twitter.com/BRBQtuEW3x
— Brian Walton (@B_Walton) December 31, 2019
BA ranks the Cards as having the sixth best drafts of the last decade. (I may have already put this on another thread when it was posted on 12/31, so sorry if this is a duplication.)
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/ranking-every-mlb-teams-draft-performance-in-the-2010s/
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