The New MV3

Over at Yahoo, fellow UCBer Bill Ivie makes the case of the new St. Louis Cardinals MV3.
Jul 16, 2013; Flushing, NY, USA; National League all stars from the St. Louis Cardinals, Yadier Molina (4), Allen Craig (21), Carlos Beltran (3), Edward Mujica (44), Matt Carpenter (13), and Adam Wainwright (50) pose for a photo before the 2013 All Star Game at Citi Field. Image Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports
What’s funny is that during the 2011-12 offseason, the topic of the new MV3 came up during the annual UCB postseason roundtable. This was in a time after both Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen were no longer with the Cardinals while the status of Albert Pujols was in a state of limbo. Of course, for a while, it could have been an MV4 when Chris Carpenter was factored into the picture.

Two offseasons ago, the discussion focused on pitching with the new MV3 consisting of Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Jaime Garcia. When healthy, that’s not a bad group of guys.

Bill makes a very convincing argument for a new MV3 of Matt Carpenter, Allen Craig, and Yadier Molina. All three are leaders on the club and are tearing it up from a statistical standpoint. Sorry, Buster Posey, but if there is a catcher that I would want on my team, it would be Molina.

When it came to Edmonds, Rolen, and Pujols, as Bill notes, the big stats that they did superb in were home runs, RBIs, and batting average. Currently, Molina leads Craig and Carpenter in batting average. As for home runs, this year’s squad is not a power-hitting team but Craig, Marp, and Molina are ranked 3rd, 4th, and 5th on the team. Craig is killing it in RBIs with 96 of them. Marp is 4th and Molina, 5th.

However, Marp not only leads the Cards with 100 runs scored, he leads all of Major League Baseball!