Thinking back on those incredibly talented early 00’s Cardinal teams, just a few players come to mind that have stood the test of time in my rapidly aging mind. Two of them are shoe ins as Hall of Famers, but I think there is one more that really stands out besides Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina: Jim Edmonds.
As much as I love Scott Rolen as one of the best Cardinals third basemen ever, Scott could never match Jim Edmonds hitting, who was nearly as good as a defender. It was nice to have two of the best players
ever on your team back in 2004 or so! But Edmonds stuck out because of the home runs from center field.
I’m not saying that Rolen shouldn’t have made the Hall of Fame; far from it. I think of Rolen as another favorite player, but much more of a stoic. He made elite defense look easy. I’m not a small hall guy. I find the Hall of Fame more on the Shame side of things, for a variety of reasons, but in the spirit of brevity: it has become oddly selective and biased. It always has been that way, but now the Hall has fought to keep up with the times. Whatever those sports authority HOF voters are up to, I’m not that impressed. I don’t really like the system of electing players to the Hall of Fame, but I also don’t have the answers. Is it that the system cannot keep up with the amount of new players and needs to be changed? Or should it be leaving players on the cusp out of the induction?
Voting will improve now that we are surrounded with new statcast technology that is integrated even into MLB’s website and the stadiums themselves, it’s become about as mainstream as it gets. It remains to be seen how the BBWAA will evaluate the balance of offensive and defensive value going forward, while comparing it to the past. Players like Nolan Arenado will certainly be compelling cases when the time comes.
Just for fun, I am going to compare Jim Edmonds to Scott Rolen via Fangraphs:
Scott Rolen
- Right around 70 WAR career
- Peak year 2004: 9 WAR, 159 wRC+
- 4 seasons of 4+ WAR
- Over 300 HR, over 1200 RBI
Jim Edmonds
- 64.5 WAR
- Peak year 2004: 8.3 WAR, 168 wRC+
- 10 seasons of 4+ WAR
- Nearly 400 HR, 1 short of 1200 RBI
This is sort of an apples to oranges argument, where it appears that Rolen is a little better of a player, except that Jim runs away with the show with a lot more years at a more premium value. Add to that the fact that Scott Rolen derived more of his value through ridiculously elite defense, while Edmonds was the better hitter by career wRC+.
Maybe it comes down to longevity? Jim Edmonds played in 2011 games, while Scott Rolen played in 2038.
How about 6+ fWAR seasons? Rolen had 4, Edmonds had 6.
Perhaps the argument I’m making might be more to show that Arenado could make the Hall of Fame? I cannot see any reason why Jim Edmonds shouldn’t be in the Hall of Fame if Scott Rolen is in. Center field is a premium position, but elite defense at third base is also extremely valuable. If you’re a small Hall guy, maybe neither is in.
Nolan Arenado has some work to do if he’s going to match either of these guy’s WAR totals. He’s just over 50 in total. He has more home runs than Rolen, so his home run total is fine. Arenado is well over 200 games away from 2,000 games. He will need a resurgence in the desert to reach that milestone.
Arenado does have 4 seasons of 6+ WAR though. That might end up being important. During Edmonds’ last five seasons or so, he was no longer himself, so maybe that left a bad taste in the BBWAA writer’s palettes… Arenado’s on-base percentage fell off a cliff after his big career year of 2022 (7.2 WAR), so what people might remember is him losing his abilities at the plate, while his elite defense dwindles. I hope he turns it around, but we no longer need to bank on it.
How about a homer happy comparison? Arenado has had three 40+ HR seasons and seven 30+. Rolen had no 40 home run seasons, and three 30+ seasons. Edmonds had two 40+ HR seasons and four 30+. So of the three, you’d have to argue peak Arenado was the best home run hitter. It’s now when the Coors effect of the Mile High City comes in, and I guess you could say that the three players are pretty similar overall, with Nolan Arenado lacking the longevity career-wise, so far.
It will be an interesting test for Nolan Arenado to play as many games as Scott Rolen, but maybe that’s a goal worth working towards. They are rather similar players in some ways.
If you go by the website Baseball Reference, Scott Rolen retains his WAR total but Edmonds falls behind. BR’s defensive evaluation of Edmonds doesn’t see Jim as valuable as fangraphs. So maybe both players are borderline cases? Maybe I’ll open another can of worms!
So what just happened: Andruw Jones has entered the conversation. He is now a Hall of Famer. How does he compare here? He is between Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen in career WAR total. He has 6! 6+ fWAR peak seasons. And nine 4+ WAR seasons! But Jim still has that beat with 10. The thing with Andruw Jones though, is that he doesn’t have a monster season, at least not like any of these Cardinal players have had. His wRC+ never peaked past 140, and he derives a lot of his value from defense. But! He had a 50+ home run season, and over 400 HR. He also played in more games than any of these guys. Even more of a power hitter.
In the end, maybe this whole time it was Andruw Jones playing alongside the career trek of Jim Edmonds, while being a little better defender and hitting even more home runs, which ultimately held back Edmonds from the Hall. When using Baseball Reference, Jones also falls back towards a 60 WAR total, but still higher than the Edmonds total. It’s so close though, that Edmonds seems to have gotten jobbed by the voting system, sort of falling through the cracks.
It seems like a good time to mention that ex-Cardinal Carlos Beltran has been inducted into the Hall of Fame! Mostly known for being one of the greatest postseason hitters of all time (and a certain scandal), Beltran certainly had a really damned good career. Beltran and Jones had rather similar WAR totals. Carlos had four 6+ fWAR seasons. Nine 4+ WAR seasons just like Andruw. But again, Edmonds with the ten four plus! It does seem like a snub. Can anyone explain the logistics of the system that lead to Jim not getting the recognition? Was it his annoying broadcasting career? I kid I kid!
One must wonder if Edmonds had played one more season to cross the 400 HR and 1200 RBI barrier, which he fell just short of. He could have used one more extra award, or something, anything, to put him over the top. He just played at a time with a ton of good baseball players. Jim Edmonds had a career OPS of .903! Jones was .823 with a much lower career batting average. They say the elite defenders make it look easy, but Jim Edmonds made it look fun. And his moonshot home runs were a thing to behold. He should be in.
The Bling
- Edmonds was a 4 time all star, 8 gold gloves, 1 silver slugger
- Rolen was a 7 time all star, also 8 gold gloves and 1 silver slugger
- Beltran was a 9 time all star, 3 gold gloves, and 2 silver slugger awards
- Jones was a 5 time all star with 10 gold gloves, a silver slugger, and he lead the league in HR and RBI in 2005
- Arenado is a bit different by having an incredible amount of platinum gloves, he has the highest MVP career share rank of all 5 players here based on baseball reference, while being another 8 time all star like Edmonds and Rolen, obtaining 5 silver sluggers. So for a while there he was known as the player for top tier defense with a lot of offense thrown in, less of a longevity guy and more of peak guy and an accolades collector, at least so far
Arenado might be showing some wear and tear: he is 7th in at bats among active players. He will be close to #1 in that department in a couple years if he can stay on the field. If he retired today, he would be top 100 all time in slugging percentage with .507! Nolan is 100th all time in career home runs, currently.
One thing that will NOT put Arenado over the top is postseason numbers. He is 1-4 in postseason series with a .385 OPS. That one win was a Rockies win over the Cubs, at least! Andruw Jones on the other hand, went to a lot of postseason games and batted .796 OPS! However, Nolan Arenado does not know what it is like to lose two World Series like Andruw Jones.
Scott Rolen was in 7 postseason series with the Cardinals. He was a .678 OPS postseason hitter, but won most series he was in except the 2004 world series! Of course, he won the trophy in 2006, to make up for that. Rolen’s peak postseason heroics can be summed up in the 2004 NLCS vs Houston where he hit 3 home runs against them! Allowing the Cardinals to advance to the World Series.
Jim Edmonds postseason should be brought up more in regards to his case for the Hall of Fame. He played in 46 postseason games and accrued 263 postseason plate appearances. He hit 13 home runs during that timeframe at an .874 OPS clip! That’s a home run for every 20 or so PA! He was victorious in more postseason series than not, Edmonds best postseason performances being in 2000 vs Atlanta in the NLDS (1.886 OPS), 2002 vs the Giants in the NLCS (1.105 OPS), 7 RBI vs Houston in the 2004 NLCS, and 2005 vs the Padres in the NLDS (1.280 OPS). No wonder they called him Jimmy Baseball.
Like Edmonds and Rolen, Beltran is also 1-1 in World Series play. But to outdo Jim Edmonds really good postseason numbers, Beltran was just on a whole other level than most postseason players. A postseason OPS north of 1.000 is legendary. 1.021 to be exact. He won in 9 postseason series and lost in 6, so he was no stranger to the postseason with 65 games and 256 PA. About the same but not quite as many plate appearances as Edmonds, but in almost 20 more games over the years. Beltran had 16 postseason home runs which is more than Edmonds 13…. but, Jim did it in a lot less postseason games played. And get this: both Edmonds and Beltran have 42 RBI in the postseason. Maybe Edmonds really did get the Hall of Fame snub? He fell just short, or just fell through the cracks in the voting process.
As for Arenado, I think it only fair to remember that he hasn’t been on the right teams at the right time to amass postseason numbers like the other guys. His postseason performance so far could be attributed to small sample size nonsense. He has been stuck on teams that haven’t been nearly so successful.
Speaking of voting, I’m going to give StrawPoll a try! Vote accordingly, I hope the links work.
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Best of 2025 Music cont’d
Today I am going to share with you the results of my last few posts, examining the best songs of 2025 through my own lists and a ton of other people’s year end lists, creating one big mega playlist and then narrowing it down to only 76 songs (just what it turned out to be, wanted to keep it at least under triple digits). I think I started out with 600 songs that I liked and then picked the best ones from that. There’s also a heavy metal version.
Also, I’m going to share with you a few choice cuts, songs that are making me happy at the moment. Which is not so easy to do in the middle of the winter. Sometimes I like dark and heavy, but sometimes I just want chill or downtempo lounge music of some form or other.
2025 Albums of the Year (link contains article with the bandcamp and youtube links)
- Holy Scum – ‘All We Have Is Never’
- Lychgate – ‘Precipice’
- Grails – ‘Miracle Music’
- Dax Riggs – ‘7 Songs for Spiders’
- Neptunian Maximalism – ‘Le Sacre Du Soleil Invaincu’
- Tortoise – ‘Touch’
- Yowie – ‘Taking Umbrage’
- Stratford Rise – self-titled EP
- easterlin – ‘reverb claymore EP’
*FACS & Martröð were added, but I am going to leave them in the honorable mention category
- FACS – ‘Wish Defense’
- Martröð – ‘Draumsýnir Eldsins’
- Swans – ‘Birthing’
- Mary Halvorson – ‘About Ghosts’
- Haunted Horses – ‘Dweller’
- Nourished By Time – ‘The Passionate Ones’
- Cheer Accident – ‘Admission’
- Earthball – ‘Outside Over There’
- Sallow Moth – ‘Mossbane Lantern’
- Cloutchaser – ‘Spongebob’
- Tulpa – ‘Plum Pinball’
- Lifeguard – ‘Ripped and Torn’
- Matmos – ‘Metallic Life Review’
- The Mars Volta – ‘Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio
- Barren Path – ‘Grieving’
*added Honorable Mention albums this week:
- Imperial Triumphant – ‘Goldstar’
- Patricia Brennan – ‘Of the Near and Far’
- Open Head – ‘What Is Success’
- Water From Your Eyes – ‘It’s a Beautiful Place’
Happy songs…
Best Songs of 2025 List google docs
That wraps up my 2025 coverage. Thanks for checking it out or for just reading the baseball part. Pitchers and catchers report in less than a month! Just gotta get through the winter. Rock on.
