While my baseball fandom gets dumped in the trash by the Ricketts family, that doesn’t mean the flames of distaste and hatred will burn any less. Our passion and love may wane and flow, but the force of our hatred for old rivals is always strong. Chances are you’re a Red Sox fan out there that could never pass a Mookie Betts deal (and neither should you). But that doesn’t mean you won’t say, “Yankees Suck!” on your hospital bed.
Yadier Molina’s career came to an end last night, thanks to the Philadelphia Phillies. Thanks God.
We’ve had to spend the past two decades hearing about Yadi’s “magic”, as if he were some wizard bestowed not only on St, Louis, but also on them so they could bestow it. give his light to the rest of us. He is depicted as a young bud with special powers that only St. Louis can create, as if St. Louis is capable of making anything other than a swamp ass and pizza that looks and tastes like it’s been passed through a carburetor. Cardinals fans tell us that not only is Yadi an all-time great catcher, but he can only be developed by and played for the Cardinals. Only they deserve such inexplicable magic.
My butt.
Was Molina a good player 10 years ago? Of course. But it’s been 10 years. Basically, Molina has been the most important character in 7 seasons now. While the Cardinals nation and all the writers across the country they’ve brainwashed will be writing poetry for years about Molina hitting a pop-tart of an opposing field single in his last AB. what he was like, and what it represented to the person who hit him. ‘was, it was much more representative when he finished game 1 and whatever rally the Cards might have made against their sheer outburst with a completely non-competitive hit . That’s what he specializes in for a long time.
They will say it goes beyond the numbers. You can’t understand Molina with just one statistic, they’ll whine. He laid out the Cardinal Way, they would ask for. Yadi is such a leader that he has had to grit his teeth more than once about balls and shots. while the game is in progress. He is such a leader, he gave up his team this season to go watch a basketball team he owns play, which he also thrown out as a spectator. Wonder what Cardinals fans would say about players on other teams who missed the game to do something personal. Bet I can guess!
Of course, then Cardinals fans will come back and tell you about all the numbers that say Molina should be a first-voting Hall of Famer. And since most voters love Cardinals crap, chances are he will. Do you know anyone who has the same amount of fWAR as Molina in 500+ games less? Russell Martin. Do you think Russell Martin is a Hall player? Do you know anyone who is worth just over an fWAR in a split second under 500 games less? Brian McCann. While the McCann would fit perfectly into their liberal lifestyle in St. Louis with his self-appointed baseball cop action. Joe Mauer is worth two less than two fWARs in 400 games less.
Buster Posey tops Molina pretty much in every respect, and he’s done it in nearly 1,000 games less. That’s what a Hall of Famer looks like.
The point, of course, is that the Cardinals have basically been playing in the catcher position for five to seven years, and now they can actually sign a catcher that can hit. And maybe it will be Willson Contreras, who will stab my heart straight into my ankle. Sure, Contreras is no match for Molina, but that won’t matter in two years’ time when we have an auto attack zone. anyway. Maybe we were really good when the Cards had a non-entity with the bat behind the disc.
Am I the one who said that there is always a player who connects with the fans even though he is not a star? Does that say something about them when it comes to A’s and Stephen Vogt? You bet I did. But A’s fans are great, and Cardinals fans are the spawning demons. And fans of A do not quickly and surely describe themselves as the connector for all baseball. A lot of the same stories resound about how much Derek Jeter means that he’s not at all simply because he’s a Yankee, but at least Jeter can claim he won’t be actively contributing to the team. his to the end. Not that he would. I’m sure Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, who dragged another damn team to the championship in a division where no one else really was trying, were happy to let all the buzz go. with a guy who can’t hit the ball off the court more than once a week.
I’m sure Yadi will now hang out every year, getting a standing ovation from those freaks every time he shows up on the jumbotron in a game (or whatever funeral they have to have at least once). again). We’ll never really get rid of him.
But this will do for now. Get out of here, Yadi.
