The Best Players in St. Louis Cardinals History, Position by Position

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 9 min read

An all-time St. Louis Cardinals lineup, rotation and bullpen built from club career leaders, award winners and Hall of Famers, with the criteria stated and the hardest choices argued out loud.

The St. Louis Cardinals make the all-time-team exercise cruel. The franchise has 144 seasons in the historical record, eleven modern World Series titles (twelve if the Browns' 1886 championship counts), 21 Most Valuable Player awards won by Cardinals and 27 Hall of Famers with four or more seasons in the uniform. Whatever lineup you write down, a player with a plaque is sitting on your bench.

This article builds the best nine hitters, five starters, a closer and a manager from the numbers the database carries, counting only what each man did for St. Louis. It explains the rules first, then walks the diamond, and it flags the choices that are close enough that a reader could reasonably reverse them. The headline answer is that the lineup is easier to fill than the pitching staff.

How the team was chosen

Four filters decide each spot. The first is club production: counting totals and rate stats with St. Louis only, so Steve Carlton's later glory or Keith Hernandez's years in New York do not count. The second is games played at the position, because the historical fielding tables show who actually stood there. The third is recognition: Most Valuable Player, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards and Hall of Fame election. The fourth is longevity, used to break ties.

What this method cannot do is worth saying plainly. The historical record carries no wins above replacement, no defensive metrics and no park adjustments. It also spans very different run environments. Rogers Hornsby hit .403 in 1925, a year when teams averaged 5.13 runs a game. Bob Gibson posted a 1.12 earned run average in 1968, when teams averaged 3.42. Putting those side by side without adjusting for the era misleads, so I describe each player against his own time wherever the data allows.

The franchise's full story is in the club history, and the review of its best seasons covers the pennants one by one.

The lineup at a glance

Notable names on the bench: Frankie Frisch, Red Schoendienst, Jim Bottomley, Enos Slaughter, Ted Simmons, Scott Rolen and Willie McGee. The rest of this piece explains who beat whom.

Right field and first base: Musial and Pujols, the two giants

Stan Musial leads the club in hits (3,630), runs (1,949), runs batted in (1,951), walks (1,599) and home runs (475), a sweep unmatched by anyone else in the franchise. His line for St. Louis was .331/.417/.559 over 3,026 games and 22 seasons. He won the Most Valuable Player award in 1943, 1946 and 1948, and in 1948 he hit .376 with 230 hits, 39 home runs and 131 runs batted in, leading the league in batting average. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969 with 317 of 340 votes.

Albert Pujols is the only man who competes with him. Across two stints, 2001 through 2011 and again in 2022, he hit 469 home runs for St. Louis, second only to Musial, with 1,397 runs batted in and a .326/.417/.614 line. He won the Rookie of the Year award in 2001 and the Most Valuable Player award in 2005, 2008 and 2009. His first ten seasons are a run few hitters match: every year from 2001 through 2010, his batting average stayed at .312 or above and his home runs ranged from 32 to 49. He played 1,357 games at first base, more than anyone in club history.

The positions work out because Musial was versatile. The historical record credits him with 1,016 games at first base and 1,890 in the outfield, so he can play right field while Pujols takes first. The arrangement costs the team nothing: both bats get in the lineup. The alternative, Musial at first and an ordinary corner outfielder, would be a weaker team.

Second base: Hornsby, with Frisch and Schoendienst close behind

Rogers Hornsby's club line, .359 batting average with a .427 on-base percentage and a .568 slugging percentage, is the highest batting average of anyone with 3,000 at-bats for the franchise. He won the Triple Crown twice, in 1922 (.401, 42 home runs, 152 runs batted in) and 1925 (.403, 39 home runs, 143 runs batted in), and the Most Valuable Player award in 1925. He had 2,110 hits and 193 home runs for St. Louis, and later managed the club to the 1926 World Series title.

The historical record credits Hornsby with 997 games at second base for St. Louis, fewer than Julian Javier (1,547), Red Schoendienst (1,429) or Frankie Frisch (1,140). That is partly because he also played shortstop and third base, and partly because his best seasons were few and extreme. Frisch (1927-1937) hit .312/.370/.423 with 195 stolen bases and the 1931 Most Valuable Player award. Schoendienst (1945-1963) collected 1,980 hits and is in the Hall of Fame, and he later managed the club for years. Either would start for most teams.

Part of Hornsby's line is the era, since the league of 1925 averaged 5.13 runs per team game. The fair comparison is how far he stood above his contemporaries, and two Triple Crowns say the distance was large.

Third base and shortstop: Boyer and Ozzie

Ken Boyer played 1,539 games at third base for St. Louis, more than anyone, and hit .293/.356/.475 with 255 home runs and 1,001 runs batted in. He won the 1964 Most Valuable Player award, in a season that ended with a World Series title, and he is not in the Hall of Fame, an omission fans still debate. Scott Rolen is the modern alternative: in six seasons (2002-2007) he hit .286/.370/.510 with 111 home runs. His rates are better than Boyer's. Boyer wins on length and on the award.

At shortstop, Ozzie Smith's case is built on a glove that the historical record can only partially describe. He won 13 Gold Gloves, from 1980 to 1992, and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2002 with 433 of 472 votes. His club line of .272/.350/.344 is not impressive until you remember the position, the era, and that he stole 433 bases, third on the club's list. He played 1,929 games at shortstop for St. Louis and 1,990 in all. Marty Marion (1,484 shortstop games, 1940-1950) won the 1944 Most Valuable Player award and is a respectable runner-up.

A realistic caveat: because there is no fielding value in the database, Smith's selection rests on awards and reputation rather than on a number I can show you. That is the right way to read it.

Catcher: Molina's durability against Simmons's bat

Yadier Molina caught 2,184 games for St. Louis, the most games at any one position for the franchise, over 19 seasons (2004 to 2022). He collected 2,168 hits, 176 home runs and 1,022 runs batted in with a .277/.327/.399 line, and won nine Gold Gloves and four Platinum Gloves. The defensive honors are the point: his bat is good for a catcher, not great.

Ted Simmons is the alternative, and on offense he wins. In 13 seasons (1968-1980) he hit .298/.366/.459 with 172 home runs and 929 runs batted in, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Modern Baseball Era committee in December 2019, and inducted in 2020, after a long wait. Tim McCarver (960 games caught) and Del Rice (1,018 games) trail well behind. Molina gets the starting spot for the length of service and the defense; Simmons would be the first man off the bench and an excellent designated hitter.

The honest read is that this is the single closest call in the lineup. A team that valued bat over glove at catcher would play Simmons and not blink.

Left field, center field and the designated hitter

Lou Brock played 2,163 games in left field, and his numbers are the template for the leadoff man: 2,713 hits, 1,427 runs and 888 stolen bases for St. Louis, with a .297/.347/.414 line. He led the league with 118 steals in 1974. His career total of 3,023 hits includes his years with the Cubs, and he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1985.

Center field is an open competition. Curt Flood played 1,682 games there, Willie McGee 1,176, Ray Lankford 1,119 and Jim Edmonds 1,047. Edmonds takes the spot on production: 241 home runs in only 1,105 games, a .285/.393/.555 line, and a bat that outslugged all of the others. McGee won the 1985 Most Valuable Player award and stole 301 bases; Lankford hit 228 home runs and stole 250 bases; Flood won seven Gold Gloves, from 1963 to 1969, and hit .293. Reasonable people could choose any of the four.

The designated hitter is Joe Medwick, who hit .335/.372/.545 with 152 home runs and 923 runs batted in in 1,216 games. In 1937 he won the Triple Crown and the Most Valuable Player award, hitting .374 with 31 home runs and 154 runs batted in. He is the last National League hitter to win a batting Triple Crown. Elected to the Hall of Fame in 1968, he is another plaque-holder who ends up at designated hitter.

The rotation: Gibson first, then three eras

Bob Gibson is the first name on any Cardinals pitching list. In 17 seasons he went 251-174 with a 2.91 earned run average, struck out 3,117 batters and threw 56 shutouts, all club records. In 1968 he went 22-9 with a 1.12 ERA in 304.2 innings, struck out 268, and won both the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards, then won the Cy Young again in 1970 (23-7). In the postseason he was 7-2 with a 1.89 ERA and 92 strikeouts in 81 innings, and he won World Series MVP in 1964 and 1967. He also struck out 17 Tigers in Game 1 of the 1968 World Series, a record at the time.

The other four spots are contested across eras.

Dean won 30 games in 1934 with a 2.66 ERA over 311.2 innings, and the Cardinals won that World Series. His peak was brief; he is in the Hall of Fame, elected in 1953. Wainwright is second to Gibson in club strikeouts and was on the 2006 champions. Carpenter's 95-44 record gives him a .683 winning percentage, the best of the five, and his Cy Young season came in 2005. Haines won 210 games over 18 seasons and pitched in the 1926 World Series, where Grover Cleveland Alexander (a Hall of Famer with four seasons for the club) protected the lead in Game 7.

The pitchers left out are strong too. Bob Forsch won 163 games from 1974 to 1988. Harry Brecheen (128-79, 2.91 ERA) and Mort Cooper (105-50, 2.77 ERA, with 28 shutouts) pitched through the 1940s, and Cooper won the 1942 Most Valuable Player award. Steve Carlton spent seven seasons in St. Louis, going 77-62.

Closer and manager

The saves leader is Jason Isringhausen, with 217 saves and a 2.98 ERA over 401 games from 2002 to 2008. Bruce Sutter, a Hall of Famer elected in 2006, saved 127 games in four seasons (1981-1984) with a 2.72 ERA. Todd Worrell (129), Trevor Rosenthal (121) and Ryan Helsley (105) round out the list, and Lee Smith saved 160 in 1990 through 1993. The numbers make Isringhausen the choice for volume, and Sutter's Hall of Fame election is the argument for the other side.

For manager, Tony La Russa has the most games (2,582) and wins (1,405) with a 1,405-1,177 record, and three pennants in his years (2004, 2006 and 2011), with titles in 2006 and 2011. Whitey Herzog went 822-728 and won the 1982 World Series, along with pennants in 1985 and 1987. Billy Southworth, though, holds the best winning percentage at .642 (620-346), and led the club to 106, 105 and 105 wins in 1942, 1943 and 1944. The pick is La Russa for sustained excellence, with Southworth the strongest case against.

Common questions

Why is Rogers Hornsby ahead of Frankie Frisch? Hornsby's hitting was in another class: a .359 average with a .568 slugging percentage and two Triple Crowns. Frisch was a Hall of Famer and an MVP, and the gap is the size of Hornsby's peak, not Frisch's shortcomings.

Who are the best Cardinals not in the lineup? Frisch, Schoendienst, Bottomley, Slaughter, Simmons, Rolen, McGee and Lankford would all start somewhere else. Bottomley (1922-1932) hit .325 with 181 home runs and won the 1928 MVP.

What about the nineteenth-century Browns? The franchise was the St. Louis Browns in the 1880s, and its stars show up on the club leader lists: Tip O'Neill's .344 average and Arlie Latham's 369 stolen bases among them. I left them off because the schedule, the rules and the competition were so different that the comparison would not mean much.

What about Mark McGwire? He hit 220 home runs in just five seasons (1997 to 2001), including 70 in 1998, but his selection would have been for slugging alone. His 1998 total led the majors. Debate about that era is real, and his Hall of Fame case has been controversial.

Where to go next

For the live record and next game, see the St. Louis Cardinals team page and the Busch Stadium page, and for news browse the Cardinals topic page. The NL Central rivals have their own all-time stories in the histories of the Cubs, the Reds and the Brewers, and the World Series history puts the Cardinals' eleven modern titles in context.