Allen Craig – Memphis Flyer

Albert Pujols as a Memphis Redbird

Entering this week’s action, St. Louis Cardinal first-baseman Matt Adams is second in the National League with a batting average of .316 (a distant second, as Colorado’s Troy Tulowitzki is hitting .340). Only one former Memphis Redbird has won a batting title: Albert Pujols with an average of .359 in 2003. This had me considering the best major-league seasons by former Redbird players, which led to the list below, one man’s top ten.

[An important qualifier: For the sake of variety, I’ve limited players to no more than two appearances on this countdown. We’ll call this The Pujols Rule.]

10) J.D. Drew (2004) — The Redbirds’ first real star, Drew made his big-league debut late in the 1998 season in the considerable shadow of Mark McGwire. He was a five-tool golden boy, on his way to comparisons with Mickey Mantle. As it turned out, this was the best Drew had. After arriving in Atlanta in a trade that sent Adam Wainwright to St. Louis, Drew hit .305 with 31 homers and 93 RBIs. He scored 118 runs and finished 6th in the MVP voting. The Braves, alas, fell in the divisional round to Houston while St. Louis won its first pennant in 17 years.

9) Rick Ankiel (2000/2008) — Ankiel’s story is unique and earns him special placement on this countdown. The club of players to win 10 games in an MLB season and hit at least 50 home runs for his career includes two men: Babe Ruth and Ankiel. The Florida native was first a pitching prodigy in Memphis (1999), then slugged 32 homers as the Redbirds’ centerfielder (2007). His 194 strikeouts for the Cardinals in 2000 broke the franchise rookie record held by Dizzy Dean. Eight years later, he returned to hit 25 homers and drive in 71 runs as the Cardinals’ everyday centerfielder. A generation of baseball fans still wonders what might have been had he not suffered that stomach-turning meltdown on the mound in the 2000 playoffs at Busch Stadium.

8) Jason Motte (2012) — Memphis fans were first introduced to Motte when he played behind the plate for the Redbirds in 2004. (Motte saw another young catcher on his way to St. Louis by the name of Molina. So he moved to the mound.) In 2011, Motte took over closing duties in September from Fernando Salas and ended up throwing the final pitch in the Cardinals’ World Series victory. A year later, he tied for the National League lead with 42 saves, only the fourth Cardinal to save 40 games in a season.

7) Dan Haren (2009) — Pitching for a dreadful Arizona Diamondback team (70-92), Haren finished fifth in the Cy Young vote, winning 14 games with a 3.14 ERA and 223 strikeouts, the most ever by a former Redbird. He pitched in his third straight All-Star Game and made Cardinal fans ache even more over the 2004 trade that sent him to Oakland for, yes, Mark Mulder.

6) Allen Craig (2013) — Craig led the National League champs in RBIs (97) despite missing most of September with an ankle injury. But it was his batting average with runners in scoring position (.454) that got him on this list. Since the statistic was first charted in 1974, only two players have hit better with ducks on the pond than Craig did last year: Hall of Famers George Brett (.469 in 1980) and Tony Gwynn (.459 in 1997).

5) Adam Wainwright (2010) — Waino has finished second in the Cy Young voting twice, and third another time (when he and teammate Chris Carpenter supposedly split the Cardinal-supporting vote). This was his first All-Star season, though, when Wainwright struck out a career-high 213, posted a career-best ERA (2.42) and won 20 games for the first time. He put up these numbers for an under-performing Cardinal team that failed to reach the playoffs. St. Louis winning the World Series the next year while Waino recovered from Tommy John surgery may be the greatest irony in franchise history.

4) Matt Carpenter (2013) — Check out the club of players to lead major-league baseball in hits, runs, and doubles in the same season: Nap Lajoie (1901), Ty Cobb (1911), Pete Rose (1976) . . . and Matt Carpenter last season. Carpenter put together this dream season in his first year as an everyday player while manning a position (second base) he never had as a professional. The catch for the Cardinals’ current third-baseman, of course, will be living up to the standard the rest of his career.

3) Yadier Molina (2013) — Yadi won his sixth consecutive Gold Glove, solidifying his place alongside Johnny Bench and Ivan Rodriguez among history’s greatest defensive backstops. But Molina also won his first Silver Slugger, hitting .319 and setting a Cardinal record for catchers with 44 doubles. The offensive booster landed Molina third in MVP voting. He also became the first Cardinal since Stan Musial and Marty Marion to play in four World Series.

2) Albert Pujols (2003) — Still playing more leftfield than first base (remember Tino Martinez in St. Louis?), Pujols won the Cardinals’ first batting title in 18 years while leading the National League in runs (137), hits (212), doubles (51), and total bases (394), all figures that remain career highs to this day. He finished second in the MVP voting to Barry Bonds, who hit 45 homers, drove in 90 runs . . . and walked 148 times.

1) Albert Pujols (2006) — It’s a testament to Pujols’ greatness — and the inadequacies of MVP voting — that Albert’s two finest seasons came in years he was runner-up for the sport’s most prestigious individual award. Just looking at his triple-crown stats, Pujols was better in ’06 (.331, 49 home runs, 137 RBIs) than he was in his MVP seasons of 2008 (.357, 37, 116) or 2009 (.327, 47, 135). He also won his first Gold Glove at first base this season, not to mention his first World Series championship. Ryan Howard can keep the MVP.

Matt Carpenter

You could have won a bet or two last March had you suggested Jorge Rondon, Eric Fornataro, Nick Greenwood, and Marco Gonzales (who??) would each pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals before the 2014 All-Star break. (The next time someone suggests a baseball team has too much pitching, stifle laughter and take the conversation elsewhere.) Injuries have compromised what appeared to be the deepest pitching staff in baseball, sending three Cardinal starters — Joe Kelly, Jaime Garcia, and most ominously, Michael Wacha — to the disabled list and leaving the fate of the defending National League champions all the more on the right arm of ace Adam Wainwright.

But even with the I-55 pitching shuttle from Memphis, (don’t forget Sam Freeman or Tyler Lyons), the Cardinals’ current crisis of confidence has more to do with the men trusted to score runs than with those tasked with preventing them. Even with a 1.89 ERA (through Sunday), Wainwright has four losses. Before going down with his mysterious shoulder injury, Wacha lost five games despite a 2.79 ERA. Near the bottom of baseball in runs and home runs, the Cardinal batting order no longer intimidates.

After St. Louis lost the 2013 World Series to Boston, Cardinal general manager John Mozeliak decided to part ways with a pair of veterans — rightfielder Carlos Beltran and third-baseman David Freese — to open playing time for a pair of recent Memphis Redbirds: second-baseman Kolten Wong and first-baseman Matt Adams. This transition required a pair of position moves by a pair of 2013 All-Stars, with Matt Carpenter shifting from second base to his natural spot at third, and Allen Craig moving from first base to rightfield. Whether or not it’s related to the position switch, Carpenter and Craig have underperformed, and dramatically when compared with their 2013 numbers. After leading all of baseball in hits last season, Carpenter has seen his batting average drop from .318 to .282. Worse, he’s striking out far too frequently (65 times) for a leadoff hitter (he went down 98 times all of last season). As for Craig — a metronomic .300 hitter throughout his professional career — the drop in production has been precipitous. He’s currently batting .249 (compared with .315 a year ago) and slugging .365 (compared with .522 just two years ago). With Craig signed through 2017 and Carpenter through 2019, these are numbers that need to take a turn for the better. Taken together, they’re a tipping point.

Solutions? The Cardinals hope one is Oscar Taveras, the hitter scouts and Cardinal fans have been breathlessly anticipating for two years now. After a 2013 season compromised by an ankle injury, Taveras homered in his Cardinal debut at Busch Stadium on May 31st. (To this point, it’s the highlight of the Cardinal season.) But after struggling (.189 batting average) through 11 games, Taveras returned to Memphis, where he resumed mashing pitchers in the Pacific Coast League (.318 batting average, .502 slugging percentage with the Redbirds). The challenge for St. Louis is finding Taveras a regular spot in the batting order (he was recalled to St. Louis last week). The Cardinals have been resistant to playing Taveras in centerfield, so he’ll have to share time with Craig in right or veteran Matt Holliday in left if he’s to make anywhere near the impact the Cardinals hope he does. (As a left-handed batter, he could theoretically platoon with either of the other two right-handed corner outfielders.)

Beyond Taveras, the Cardinals will at least dip their toes in the trade waters this month (the non-waiver deadline is July 31st). And this is where current Redbird prospects like Stephen Piscotty and Randal Grichuk could come into play. If the Cardinal system has a surplus anywhere — it’s not pitching, remember — it’s in the outfield. Could a run-producing third-baseman or second-baseman be found? (A shoulder injury recently sidelined Wong, who homered in his return to St. Louis Sunday .) Bottom line: for the first time since the Cardinals acquired Mark McGwire during the 1997 season, their offense is without a marquee slugger. The highest-paid hitter remains Holliday, whose current averages (.263 batting, .378 slugging) are shades of his career figures (.309, .523). In some respects, he’s the face of this season’s struggles. For an offense that leads the National League in double plays, Holliday has hit into the most: 13.

The Milwaukee Brewers are for real. The Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds are back in contention after sluggish starts. For the first time in years, the St. Louis Cardinals are fighting for relevance, not so much among World Series contenders, but within their own five-team division. Take comfort, Cardinal Nation, in the Chicago Cubs.