3 teams to root for with the St. Louis Cardinals out of the playoffs

The St. Louis Cardinals are not going to be playing baseball in October this year. They will likely finish the year seven games back of the Wild Card and seven games back of the division. All of their efforts to succeed this year have been for naught as the team misses the postseason for the second consecutive year.

However, baseball will still go on without the Birds on the Bat in the playoffs, and that's good for fans of the sport. Even though the Cardinals aren't in the playoffs, that doesn't mean their fans have to be miserable for the next month. Instead, they can focus their attention to a different team that actually made the playoffs.

There are a variety of teams who will be playing postseason baseball with various connections to the Cardinals' organization in one way or another. There could be former players -- or in one case, a former manager -- on the team. Another team has taken a very similar path to the postseason that the 2011 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals took.

Despite having plenty of former Cardinals on the team, I've decided to not include the Los Angeles Dodgers because, well, they're the New England Patriots of baseball.

Fans of the St. Louis Cardinals should root for these three teams in the postseason this year.

Kansas City Royals

Royals fans despise the St. Louis Cardinals, but the inverse isn't necessarily true. Most Cardinals fans view the Royals as a little brother of sorts. Therefore, the cross-state rival isn't a franchise that many fans have strong disdain toward.

The Royals revamped their roster this offseason by altering their starting rotation. By signing Michael Wacha -- a former Cardinal himself -- and Seth Lugo, the Royals built one of the best rotations in baseball this year. That's admirable in and of itself, as John Mozeliak tried to do the same this offseason with significantly less success.

In addition to Michael Wacha, the Royals have Paul DeJong and Tommy Pham, two other Cardinal legacy players, on the roster.

The Royals also have one of the best players in the sport right now in Bobby Witt Jr. Witt has accumulated 9.4 bWAR, and he's in the running to finish second in American League MVP voting. Witt, when grouped with a fine collection of legacy Cardinals and Kansas City's proximity to St. Louis, makes it easy to root for the Royals in the postseason.

San Diego Padres

There's one primary reason why Cardinal fans should root for the San Diego Padres: Mike Shildt. If he's able to lead the Padres deep into the playoffs in the same year that John Mozeliak and his team toiled in the middle of the pack, it would be the perfect moment for Shildt to give Mo a very specific gesture.

Now, I'm not one who believes Mike Shildt is a transcendent manager who could take any team to the playoffs, but his track record does prove that he's able to manage a professional baseball team well. I don't think Shidlt could have done much better than Marmol did this year with the group of players Marmol was given; the Cardinals had a roster doomed to fail from the start. However, Shildt could have possibly inspired the players and challenged the front office more.

There are no other former Cardinals on the team besides Mike Shildt, but the Padres are a team that has seen significant investment from ownership paired with a wily general manager in AJ Preller. Preller is everything Cardinal fans want John Mozeliak to be now: fast-acting, creative, and proactive.

On the field, the Padres have one of the best bullpens in baseball with Robert Suarez, Tanner Scott, and Jason Adam in the back. They have Luis Arraez, one of the best contact players in the game, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Jurickson Profar, Xander Bogaerts, and Dylan Cease, too.

Essentially, the Padres are everything Cardinals fans wish their team was this year. They traded for an ace (Dylan Cease), they signed a useful outfielder who went off this year (Jurickson Profar), their veterans and future Hall of Famers (Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts) made contributions this year, and they have a Rookie who is going to challenge Paul Skenes for Rookie of the Year (Jackson Merrill, though Masyn Winn has been nearly as good all year as Merrill). Throw in Mike Shildt and an enviable general manager, and you have a team fans of the Cardinals can get behind.