While the Red Sox-Yankees and Dodgers-Giants rivalries have gotten the most historical ink, Cubs vs. Cardinals is also one of baseball's best long-term feuds, pitting the Wrigley Field faithful against the self-proclaimed "Best Fans in Baseball."
Going into the 2016 season, the St. Louis Cardinals had the edge when it came to success, winning the National League Central 10 times to the Chicago Cubs' three. Since the Cubs won the World Series in 1908, the Cardinals have won the World Series 11 times. In 1998, the Cards even had the winner in the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase (though Sosa won the NL MVP that season).
After winning the World Series in 2016 and going into 2017 as the repeat favorite this year, the Cubs are the kings of the hill. The greatest threat to the Cubs repeating now looks like -- you guessed it -- the Cardinals.
It has been a golden era for the Cardinals since 2000, the team's 1,572 wins (through Monday morning) ranking second in baseball, between the New York Yankees' 1,617 wins and the Boston Red Sox's 1,529. Since the 2000 season, the Cardinals have had only a single losing season, at 78-84 in 2007, and failed to win 85 games only one other season (they won 83 in 2006 ... aaaand, they won the World Series as a wild card that year).
When looking at historical payrolls versus wins, the Cardinals have been one of the most successful teams in baseball at wringing victories from dollars. In getting the second-most wins from 2000-2017, the Cardinals have had only the 11th-largest payroll. Only two teams in baseball had a larger positive difference between their win rank and their payroll rank: the Oakland A's and the Cleveland Indians.
But where Oakland and Cleveland, fellow small-market teams, eked out their wins by going full-bore into the boom or bust of rebuilding-competing-teardown, the Cardinals have never had to go the full rebuild, consistently contending every year.
Yes, I said small-market. And if they're not small market, they're not in the same league as the "big-boy" market teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and yes, Cubs. By Nielsen's market rankings, only six teams (Baltimore, Pittsburgh, San Diego, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati) play in smaller markets. Seven if you decide to split up the San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland market into chunks that highly disfavor the A's (which is probably justified).
Nor do the Cardinals have a rich TV deal that allows them to hit above their rate. Craig Edwards charted the television deals and made local revenue estimates for all 30 teams for FanGraphs last year and the Cards were near the bottom of the league there, too.
How have the Cardinals done this? One way is by avoiding extremely large contracts that turn out to be a millstone around the neck. Matt Holliday's seven-year, $120 million contract actually ended up being one of those rare big-ticket slugger contracts that work out for the team. The Cards' decision to let Albert Pujols walk looks like one of the best decisions in baseball in recent years. The choice to not chase Jason Heyward aggressively in free agency after his one year in St. Louis isn't looking too bad, either.
Since John Mozeliak took over as general manager of the Cardinals after the 2007 season, the team has spent only an average amount on free agents. Despite that perception that the Cardinals are Missouri's rich team and Kansas City's poor team, the Cardinals have actually spent slightly less than the Kansas City Royals in free agency during the Mozeliak years, giving out $494 million in guaranteed money in major league free agency compared to $497 million for Kansas City (league-average is $490 million).
The Cardinals spend, but they tend to spend carefully. Drafting has also helped the Cards stay competitive, the team having drafted seven players since Mozeliak took over that currently have five WAR or more in the majors. That ranks well against some of the farm systems praised for their prospects over that period such as the Astros (six) or Cubs (four). And finishing at the top of the league regularly, St. Louis picked at the end of rounds a lot more than the beginning. In the last 10 years, the highest the Cardinals have picked is 13th in 2008.
With the Cubs struggling, at least relative to their talent, early in 2017, it's the Cardinals that project to benefit the most. The first-place Brewers and the still-hanging-on Cincinnati Reds are both rebuilding teams that don't have the rosters to still be where they are at the end of the season.
But St. Louis projects to be more than a minor annoyance for the Cubs. At the start of the season, the Cubs were projected to have a 90 percent probability of winning the NL Central. But 90 percent isn't 100 percent and the team that was projected to topple the Cubs two-thirds of the time was the Cardinals.
One of the things that makes the Cardinals consistent in the projections is their lack of reliance on one or two star players. Despite now being a coin flip for the playoffs, only a single pitcher is projected at more than three WAR (Carlos Martinez) and only two hitters on the team project at that level (Matt Carpenter and Jedd Gyorko). St. Louis' ceiling is nowhere near that of the Cubs. There's nobody that stands out as likely to factor in the MVP or Cy Young voting at the end of the year.
The Cardinals have a lot of good players, solid depth, and a certain amount of flexibility with how they use their players. That means that if the Cubs continue to stumble in 2017, having a high floor makes the Cards the most likely to push the world champions into a wild-card spot this year and perhaps start the Cubs off on their next curse.