Myth-busting 5 narratives surrounding the St. Louis Cardinals

Myth - Adolis Garcia is another example of the Cardinals misevaluating talent

Reality - Adolis Garcia was passed on by all 30 clubs after being traded to Texas, and has worked his way to becoming a great player since then.

During Adolis Garcia's brief tenure with the Cardinals organization, he wasn't all that productive of a player. The Cardinals had a variety of outfield prospects, and at age 25, Garcia was not showing enough promise to remain in the plans for St. Louis.

They traded him following the 2018 season to the Texas Rangers for cash considerations, and he was eventually designated for an assignment by the Rangers as well. He went unclaimed by all other teams in baseball and returned to the Rangers on a Spring Training invite.

Years later, he's now mashing throughout the postseason, passing David Freese for most RBIs in a single postseason. He's turned into a really good player and comes up big when the lights are the brightest. Another huge miss by the Cardinals, right?

Sure, they'd love to have a mulligan on him if they could, but this is an example of a player proving all of Major League Baseball wrong with his hard work and determination, not as much a talent evaluation issue by the Cardinals. If it was that, then there's no way all 30 teams would have passed on Garcia when he was DFA'd.

Randy Arozarena, Zac Gallen, and Sandy Alcantara are for sure examples of the Cardinals betting on the wrong talent. All three of them quickly proved with their new organizations that they had a ton of talent, and somehow the Cardinals did not see what their new teams did. Make fun of the Cardinals all you want for those trades, but the Garcia one says much more about Garcia's ability to overcome adversity than it does about the Cardinals' ability to evaluate talent.