We love ourselves some Pujols out here and the world knows it, but from time to time its good to see someone else on the team to get a little of the spotlight. From our extensive research, we’ve found that if St. Louis had to pick a second favorite Cardinal, most would say the same guy: Yadier Molina
Guess who got the next cover of ESPN the magazine and is sporting a pretty bad-ass catcher pose?!
Bam!
You can read the cover story in the next ESPN issue, or online right now (if you are an ESPN Insider subscriber). Here’s a taste:
Molina is a throwback, a catcher in the grittiest sense of the word. He’s a master of an art driven underground by a collective lust for the long ball. In the early 1980s, when offense exploded and home runs became all the rage, many clubs started signing catchers for their skills at the plate rather than those behind it. In the ’90s, Mike Piazza became the poster boy, and the nuances of the position began to fade. But no catcher can drive in as many runs as he can prevent. The stat geeks have yet to master next-level fielding metrics for catchers, so Molina’s defensive prowess is more anecdotal than measured, but his pickoff and caught-stealing numbers are telling.
They also have a video up that we have posted below of a quick interview during the photo shoot. Of course, as we in St. Louis could have guessed, Yadi is subtitled.