Three of the best Cardinals teams to not win the World Series in the 21st century

The St. Louis Cardinals have a long history of winning. 2023 will not be remembered as one of those years, but for the vast majority of their franchise history, the Cardinals have been a pretty solid team. They've won 11 World Series titles and 19 National League Pennants.

Each generation of fans has seen more than their fair share of franchise icons and legends. Players such as Bob Gibson, Stan Musial, Lou Brock, Ozzie Smith, Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and Adam Wainwright.

All of the listed players were part of at least one World Series championship team during their time in St. Louis. Pujols, Molina, and Wainwright have two rings together, while Gibson has two and Musial has three.

However, winning the World Series is hard to do, and at the end of each season, there are always going to be 29 unhappy teams who are looking to unseat the defending champion. Though the Cardinals have traditionally had very good teams, a lot of them haven't gone on to win the World Series, showing just how hard it is to be baseball's best team.

The Cardinals had great teams in 1968, 1985, and 1987, but ultimately fell short of their goals. It's happened to the Cardinals a couple of times since the turn of the century as well. There have been teams with star-studded rosters that haven't been able to seal the deal.

In this piece, we will look at three such teams from the 21st century that had championship potential but couldn't close the deal