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Morning Thread: St. Louis Cardinals Playoff Shares

Proposed: A new "Mike Matheny Doesn't Give A Gosh-Darn" image macro.
Proposed: A new "Mike Matheny Doesn't Give A Gosh-Darn" image macro.

This amounts to news in late November: The Cardinals have awarded their playoff shares, and they are always much larger than I expect—$323,169.98 in this case, for 51 lucky full-shareholders. For Daniel Descalso, Allen Craig, Jon Jay, and David Freese, that's 77% of their salary. For Matt Holliday, it's two percent. Someone who can do math has probably used those numbers to explain why David Freese was highly motivated to have the best World Series ever and Matt Holliday lacked the incentives to not have an accumulated sludge of random injuries ruin his postseason. 

What I'm interested in doing is sifting through the guys who were probably a little surprised to get checks in the mail this week. I don't have the time to do a big write-up about them this morning, but I'd like to hear, as is my wont this time of year, who it is you think you'll be least likely to remember as a 2011 Cardinal in 2031, when your robot children ask you what baseball was like before the robovolution. 

My picks, so as not to influence yours, after the jump.

3. Andrew Brown: He's the easy choice, which is why I didn't rank him first. Brown isn't a touted prospect, wasn't as good a AAAA hitter or a repeat visitor as Mark Hamilton, hasn't bounced around forever or been a first round pick like Shane Robinson or Pete Kozma, and was almost completely forgettable, for good and ill, in his 22 plate appearances. Now he's a Colorado Spring Sky Sox, so he won't be back for a more memorable second go-round.

2. Bryan Augenstein: "Oh yeah," you'll say, when someone checks your answers on his robophone, "that year's inexplicable opening day guy!" Every time Roboduardo Sanchez pitches, you'll be reminded in a very vague way. 

1. Brian Tallet: No player on the 2011 Cardinals, though, offers quite the combination of club tenure, uniqueness, and forgettability as Brian Tallet, who spent half the season with the Cardinals, was part of a crucial and controversial midseason trade, had an ERA over 8, looked like a surviving member of a hard-living 70s rock band in a 90s Behind the Music special, and is still completely forgettable.