The St. Louis Cardinals Canadian MVP

Yesterday, I wrote about the announcement from The Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum that former St. Louis Cardinals left-handed reliever Rheal Cormier will be among their 2012 inductees. That led to a discussion among some of the readers here as to the best Cardinal ever born in the land up North. Though the players competed in many different eras and of course played different positions, the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stat gives us a comparison point to identify the best Canadian Cardinal of all time. While many past and present members of the Cardinals system have played (and coached) in Canada – the Cardinals once had a minor league team in Hamilton, Ontario in fact – they will not be included here since they were not born in Canada. That group includes such luminaries as Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan (teammates with the Triple-A Vancouver Mounties in the Oakland system in 1968) , Chris Carpenter and Kyle Lohse. New Cardinals bullpen catcher Jamie Pogue is a Canadi...