St. Louis Cardinals: Yadier Molina deserves to be an All-star

The St. Louis Cardinals’ catcher Yadier Molina is having a career year, so why is he fourth among catchers in All star voting?

The yearly All-Star game is almost among us and it is up in the air as to how many St. Louis Cardinals‘ players are going to be representing the team in Washington. As of right now, there are no Cardinal players in the top five at any position except for catcher.

This is slightly understandable because of the fact that Yadier Molina was on the shelf for a month but still, Yadi deserves to be there.

Via Mark Saxon;

Lets focus in on the year Molina is having to argue his case. Here is Yadi’s offensive profile for this year:

Lets compare those numbers to the voted leader-Buster Posey:

While Yadi trails in overall average and OBP, Posey lacks the same power numbers even when he has played almost 20 more games than Molina. Before his injury, Molina was on pace for his first 30-homer season of his career.

Digging deeper into some of his stats, Yadi has a career best hard contact percentage with 47.7% rate. Posey’s hard contact percentage is 39.7%. With an overall batting profile that is slightly less glamorous, Yadi is not that far behind.

Accepting that Posey should be the starter for the All-Star game, lets look at who is in second place: Willson Contreras.

Once again, Yadi’s offensive profile, especially power, looks better than Contreras’. Leading in average, homers, and RBI’s, Yadi has the edge on Contreras by a wide margin offensively.

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Defensively, it is hard to admit, but Yadi is having a down year. He has -4 DRS which does not fare well when compared to Posey and Contreras who sit at 4 DRS a piece. Also, although it’s in less attempts, Yadi’s caught stealing percentage sits at 24% which is less than the league average of 29%. Both Contreras and Posey sit at 33% in that department. The numbers don’t tell the whole story though as Yadi does have less attempts against him.

Although Yadi may lack in some of the statistical categories among catchers, the one area that can’t be measured that Yadi has always excelled at is pitch calling and leadership. I don’t even mean leadership in the clubhouse, but leadership in-game with the pitcher he has on the mound. For the first part of the season, the St. Louis Cardinals’ biggest strength was their pitching staff and I don’t think it’s an accident.

Player testimonials agree as Jack Flaherty described how helpful Yadi was during his MLB debut saying, “Yadi did a good job of keeping me calm.” This in game leadership and ability to run a pitching staff and is the biggest reason for me why Yadi should be an All-Star every year, even if his stats lack slightly.

It is honestly embarrassing for us as a fanbase that we cannot do a better job of supporting our team members to get to the All-Star game. One could argue that Yadier Molina, Miles Mikolas, Jose Martinez, Jordan Hicks, and even Tommy Pham could be All-Stars.

We as a fanbase need to take the three minutes it takes to vote. Voting closes July 5th and you can vote a max of 35 times. Vote here.

Next: Hitting coach options

Molina could make it to the All-Star game through the player vote or the manager vote, but that is not a guaranteed thing. With under two weeks left to vote, there is urgency but still time to support our St. Louis Cardinals, So go out and do it!