Cardinals All-Quarter Century Team after 25 years of historic baseball

Bullpen

Closer: RHP Trevor Rosenthal

This was a tough call between Trevor Rosenthal and Jason Isringhausen, as they are two of the most dominant closers in Cardinals history and did it over a long period of time, but Rosenthal's postseason success has to give him the nod. Rosenthal and Isringhausen's regular-season ERAs are separated by just 0.01, but Rosenthal posted an insane 0.69 ERA in 23 postseason appearances to go along with a 14.54 K/9. Isringhausen was great in the postseason, too (2.78 ERA), but Rosenthal was historic.

Set-Up Men: RHP Jason Isringhausen and RHP Ryan Helsley

Since Isringhausen missed the ninth inning on this team, he will be deployed in the biggest spots leading up to the save situation, manning that "set-up" role alongside flamethrower Ryan Helsley. While Isringhausen and Rosenthal have Helsley beat in terms of longevity by a few seasons, Helsley has the best ERA (2.67) of any qualified reliever the Cardinals have had since 2000. The trio of Rosenthal, Isringhausen, and Helsley is truly insane, and any one of the three is worthy of closing games for St. Louis here.

Left-Handed Options: LHP Kevin Siegrist, LHP Steve Kline, and LHP Ray King

From the left side of the mound, there were many options to choose from, but this trio seemed the best fit to lock down opposing hitters in the Cardinals' bullpen.

Kevin Siegrist put up one of the best seasons by a Cardinals reliever in team history in 2013, posting a 0.45 ERA in 45 appearances. He left a mind-boggling 98.3% of runners on base that season, and opposing hitters hit just .128 against him. For his Cardinals tenure, Siegrist posted a 3.03 ERA and was lights out against left-handed hitters.

Ray King and Steve Kline were two of the Cardinals' best southpaws in the mid-2000s, both posting ERAs south of 3.00 and limiting hard contact at an elite rate. These three would give this Cardinals team great options out of the bullpen to face big left-handed hitters late in games.

Middle Relief: RHP Jason Motte an RHP Giovanny Gallegos

While there were so many names who could have grabbed the last two spots, I gave Jason Motte and Giovanny Gallegos the nods for their incredible performances with St. Louis.

Motte was the closer of the Cardinals' World Series team in 2011 and had multiple dominant seasons for St. Louis. Motte appeared in 311 games for St. Louis, the third-most of any reliever since 2000, and posted a 3.03 ERA in his time here.

Gallegos may be remembered by some fans for how things ended, but he was incredibly consistent and reliable for St. Louis for four and a half seasons, appearing in the fifth-most games for St. Louis since 2000 and posting a 3.36 ERA over that time.