St. Louis Cardinals: The 2017 Cardinals Hall of Fame Class

Many know McCarver as the TV analyst who did World Series games with FOX until switching over to FOX Sports Midwest to do St. Louis Cardinals games with Dan McLaughlin. But many Cardinal fans remember him as a great catcher, who was an instrumental part of two World Series teams in the sixties.

He spent twenty-one years in the big leagues, twelve of those being with the Cardinals. He is one of the best catchers in Cardinals history. There is only one guy I can think of who is better than him: Yadier Molina. Both of those guys, McCarver and Molina, are and have been very loyal to the Cardinals organization. Who doesn’t love loyalty in a player?

McCarver was a two-time All-Star in back-to-back seasons in 1966 and 1967. He also had a breakout year with the St. Louis Cardinals where he was extremely close to winning MVP in 1967. He hit .295 that season and had an on base percentage of .369.

In his St. Louis Cardinals career, he batted .272, and had sixty-six home runs, to go along with 453 runs batted in. He had a total WAR of 20.5 in St. Louis, most of that because of his oWAR, which was a total of 20.3 overall. He had 1,501 hits in his whole career; 1,029 of those with the St. Louis Cardinals.

After St. Louis, he went on to have a pretty solid career in Philadelphia, but did enough in St. Louis, obviously. He never did win an award in his long career, but did enough to be an above-average catcher in his Cardinals career.

I definitely agree with the voters on putting McCarver in. He was a good player for the Cardinals. Loyalty is clearly a key in being a Cardinals HOFer, and twelve seasons in St. Louis proves just that. Congats to Tim McCarver on being a part of the 2017 Cardinals HOF class; well deserved.