Cardinals news and notes: Kluber, Lynn, Game 6

John Fleming’s article on Wednesday about Carlos Martinez brought up Joe Magrane, another very good Cardinals pitcher during his age-23 and 24 season, whose career was derailed by an elbow injury. A lot of things come to mind when you think of the 80s Cardinals for which Magrane played, such as speed, defense, Jack Clark launching balls into the seats, and maybe backflips.

Pitching is usually far down the list, but the Cardinals had some fine pitchers as well during that run. By bWAR, their top-five pitchers during the 80s were as follows:

1. John Tudor (1985-1988) - 16.6
2. Joaquin Andujar (1981-1985) - 13.0
3. Joe Magrane (1987-1989) - 9.9
4. Danny Cox (1983-1988) - 9.4
5. Bob Forsch (1980-1988) - 9.2

Tudor was the closest thing the Cardinals had to an ace, which he absolutely was in 1985 when he threw a staggering 275 innings with a 1.93 ERA. Had Dwight Gooden not been busy having one of the best seasons in the history of baseball, Tudor probably would have walked away with the Cy Young Award.

There was no baseball yesterday but here’s what you may have missed yesterdat at VEB:

Corey Kluber / Chris Carpenter

Joe Schwarz compared Corey Kluber’s twoseamer from Tuesday night to Chris Carpenter’s peak.

Lance Lynn

I explained why Lance Lynn was missed so much in 2016 and why he can be a huge asset next year.

Farm Report

Good news everyone, Harrison Bader is still hitting the ball. Read about it here in the farm report.

Game 6

Yesterday was the five-year anniversary of Game 6. Heather penned a wonderful breakdown of the game because she captured not just the moments we all remember but some of the forgotten ones, too.

Enjoy the series and have a great weekend, everyone.