St. Louis Cardinals - All-Decade 2000-09

The first entrant from the National League as we head down the list of winningest teams in the 2000's (the decade, not the millennium) is the St. Louis Cardinals. Heading into said decade, the Cardinals were tied with the Athletics for second-most world championships in baseball history with nine apiece (trailing the Yankees, who were then sitting at 25). But the Redbirds won the 2006 fall classic to take sole possession of second place, then added another in the next decade to extend their lead. Here's an aggregate roster of the most commonly appearing Cardinals from the years 2000 thru 2009, organized by games played per position, with years active with the team displayed on the right.

Not only is Albert Pujols the overall leader among all Cardinals players in total games played (across multiple positions), but he's arguably the best offensive performer of the entire decade in question. From his debut season in 2001 (when he took home Rookie of the Year honors as a 21-year-old) through my cutoff point of 2009, he put up a combined .334/.427/.628 batting line (a 172 OPS+, meaning he was 72% better than league average), won three MVP awards (in 2005, 2008, and 2009), and made eight All-Star teams (every year except 2002), along with five Silver Sluggers and a Gold Glove for good measure. He stuck around in St. Louis for two more years into the next decade, but even on the strength of his first decade alone, he had already put up enough Wins Above Replacement to place fourth on the all-time Cardinals leaderboard (behind Stan Musial, Rogers Hornsby, and Bob Gibson). If we were going by "La Máquina's" first base appearances only, he would have come in second on the all-decade leaderboard to Jim Edmonds, who cracked a thousand games in center field. Clocking in at 17th all-time in WAR among STL players, the former Angel was known just as much for his left handed power stroke (383 career HR) as he was for his exemplary defensive skills (six straight Gold Gloves with the Cardinals, plus two more during the previous decade in Anaheim). Rounding out the top three in appearances, we have Colombian shortstop Edgar Renteria, who took home three Silver Sluggers and two Gold Gloves of his own during his St. Louis tenure.

Continuing the trend of defensively gifted infielders, Scott Rolen was the clear leader in games at third base for the Cardinals, after arriving via trade with the Phillies during the 2002 season. Even not counting that half season, Rolen had four straight All-Star appearances and three Gold Gloves while he was with the Cardinals. Although Yadier Molina is technically the starter here, St. Louis's all-decade catching situation was split almost evenly between Molina and Mike Matheny, who totaled 611 games between 2000 and 04. We'll see plenty more of Yadi in the next decade's version of this project, as he stuck around for the entire 2010's decade, enough to land him 16th overall on the Cardinals' all-time WAR leaderboard. While not as close as the Molina/Matheny race, Fernando Vina doesn't have a stranglehold on second base (Aaron Miles is fairly close behind when considering his work at other positions), but Vina did pick up Gold Gloves in two of his four years in St. Louis. Both corner outfield spots could be seen as revolving doors for the Cards in the 00's, with J.D. Drew holding down right field with fewer than 400 games (Ryan Ludwick and Juan Encarnacion follow him in the standings). Phat Albert Pujols actually had the most games in left field of any Cardinals player in the 00's (with just 269), followed very closely by Ray Lankford (267 from 2000-01 and then again briefly in 04). But if you consider the work So Taguchi put in across both non-center outfield spots this decade, he's the logical choice for left field.

Starting pitching consistency wasn't a huge strength for the Cardinals in the 00's, as their leader in games started in that time period, Matt Morris, has nearly 100 fewer games than the leaders of the two teams above St. Louis in the all-decade standings. The homegrown Morris was more a model of consistency rather than excellence (despite finishing third in Cy Young balloting in 2001), and it must especially sting that he left the team via free agency the year before they won the World Series. Speaking of free agency, Chris Carpenter signed with the Redbirds prior to the 2004 season, won the Cy Young award the following season, and was a big part of the World Series winning rotation the year after that... before missing all but 5 games of the next two seasons combined due to injury. Going by just games started, Adam Wainwright would finish a not-so-distant sixth due to his 86 starts from 2007-09, but that discounts the 63 games he pitched as a very good reliever the two years prior to that stretch. Waino is of course still a member of the Cardinals, and his performance during the current decade helps him rank 14th overall in all-time WAR. This sets up a three-way battle for the fourth and fifth rotation spots between righties Jason Marquis, Jeff Suppan, and Woody Williams, who are separated by just five games. Marquis and Suppan each spent three years with the team (the same three, in fact), while Williams had an additional partial season after arriving in St. Louis in a now-defunct August trade in 2001.

Jason Isringhausen first made it to the major leagues with the Mets in the mid-90's as a starter, then became a very important part of the pre-Moneyball Athletics, but he spent the overwhelming majority of his career as the closer for the Cardinals. The curveball-wielding righty ranks 28th all time with 300 saves (217 of which came in St. Louis), including leading the league with 47 in 2004, the year on which my favorite baseball video game of all time is based. The fact that I included the two pitchers who bookended Izzy as Cardinals closers (Dave Veres, who shifted to a setup role in 2002, and Ryan Franklin, a former starter for the Mariners) shows that I didn't distinguish between relief pitching roles when tallying all-decade appearances. Speaking of appearances, organizing the list this way rather than by innings pitched surely helped the cases of Steve Kline and Randy Flores, two lefty specialists who averaged less than one inning a game in their Cardinals tenures - 247.1 innings in 300 games for Kline, and 178 IP in 237 G for Flores.