The franchise traded an icon, and history has never been the same.
Yes, the Cardinals’ recent struggles have us asking a question openly that has previously been confined to a whisper:
Did St. Louis curse itself by trading away Joe Kelly?
Plenty of bad stuff has happened in the St. Louis metro since the summer of 2014, and to be clear, we wish the area peace and prosperity. Confining it to the diamond, though…it’s pretty clear what went wrong. Since trading Joe Kelly, the Cardinals have won just two postseason series. They’ve failed to be competitive in each NLCS they’ve made. They finished 17½ games out of first place one year. Yadier Molina accused Major League Baseball of a grand conspiracy to keep him from matching Johnny Bench’s career Gold Glove total, then melted down defensively in the first game back at his archrival’s field with said field at full capacity. Meanwhile, Joe Kelly has won the World Series twice, kicked Tyler Austin’s butt, and brought vengeance upon the Astros on behalf of baseball in the form of schoolyard mockery.
Sometimes, you win a trade. Sometimes, you lose a trade. Rarely, however, does a trade do this much harm.
