St. Louis Cardinals: Yadier Molina joins exclusive club
Lou Brock—2289 games with the Cardinals
Second on the all-time list for games played with the St. Louis cardinals is base-stealing left fielder Lou Brock. Brock wasn’t a lifetime Cardinal. He played 327 games with the Cubs before the infamous trade of Brock for Broglio transpired in June of 1964. The trade involved a handful of other players, but it was mainly Brock for Broglio.
In the three-and-a-half seasons Brock played with the Cubs, he was not yet the prolific base stealer he would become. His single-season high with the Cubs was 24 steals. In his first full season with the Cardinals, Brock stole 63 bases, which was a preview of what was yet to come.
From 1965 to 1977, Brock averaged 63 steals per season. He led the league eight times in this 13-year stretch. He also averaged 97 runs scored per season and twice led the league in that category. He was a five-time all-star.
Brock was at his best in 1967 and 1968 when he had back-to-back seasons with 5.6 and 5.8 WAR, but his most famous season was 1974. That year, he broke Maury Wills’ single-season stolen base mark when he nabbed 118 bases (Wills had 104 in 1962).
Brock’s record has since been broken by Rickey Henderson, who was recently named the third greatest left fielder in the history of baseball here at Call to the Pen. Henderson stole 130 in 1982. Brock remains second on the all-time single-season steals list.
Even though he played the second most games in St. Louis Cardinals history, Lou Brock is barely in the top 10 in WAR for the franchise. His defense brings him down and he had a fairly low walk rate. His .297 batting average is very close to the “magic” .300 average that was long considered the gold standard. That said, his .347 on-base percentage is 54th among the 96 Cardinals with more than 2000 plate appearances.
Brock made the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility but is well below the average of 20 Hall of Fame left fielders using Jay Jaffe’s JAWS metric. One reason he made the Hall of Fame was likely his 3023 hits. Also, he was the all-time leader in stolen bases for many years after he retired.