Good for you, Tommy Edman

The former Cardinal Swiss Army knife collected the NLCS MVP award.

Brandon Sloter/GettyImages

It’s easy to be jealous. The location of that all too natural feeling right next to our brains is far closer and easier to reach unfortunately than kindness and compassion. Like it or not, the first urge of humans is likely pointed at the desire to have something they currently don’t have. For St. Louis Cardinals fans, the current desire is for Tommy Edman to be the NLCS MVP in St. Louis, and not for the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Those were the facts last night, as the Dodgers disposed of the New York Mets in route to a date with the Yankees, and Edman walked away with the individual player award and a .407 batting average. Sent out in the three-team deal that brought Erick Fedde to St. Louis this past summer, Edman went from dead man walking to the biggest stage, and he thrived. After being shut down in spring training and hitting multiple snags along the rehab route while still a Cardinal, Edman playing meaningful games seemed unlikely as the All Star break came and went.

After the trade, Edman turned it on and helped the Dodgers solidify their playoff stance. Sunday night, he helped them punch a ticket to October’s final dance. On the surface, it is a duel between two of the most expensive rosters in baseball. Below it, though, stories like Edman ring through the mechanism.

The human Swiss army knife smashed six home runs, five doubles, and added a triple in 37 regular season games before being one of Los Angeles’s biggest power sticks in the postseason. The 29-year-old may look like he’s starting his senior year of high school, but he’s packed a nice little punch in his six year career that included seven triples in his debut season and 41 doubles in the 2021 season.

The owner of a Gold Glove is the latest Cardinal to find success rather quickly after leaving the team--a disturbing trend that St. Louis fans digest like they would cold Chinese food. Whether it’s Tyler O’Neill smoking home runs in Fenway or Jack Flaherty buzzing in the playoffs and honing his skills elsewhere, the hits keep on coming. But that’s where the gripes end for me, right after merely stating their existence.

The lost talent refurbishing elsewhere is the 688th example that the Cardinals are in, and have been for a while, a decent form of disarray. They lean on the wrong talent and under-develop the young guns they keep (with some exceptions), basically unable to get more young prospects to the finish line of being 3.0 WAR or higher talents. More importantly, consistent forces of production.

Edman finding some lightning in his stick out west on the biggest stage is a good baseball story, once you get past the remorse that will hit the mind due to that jealousy bone showing its face. A sixth round draft pick by St. Louis out of Stanford University who did whatever the team needed him to do is having his moment--and will be a bargain at $9.5 million next year for the spend-happy Dodgers.

Edman, not Flaherty as much, makes me root for Los Angeles. At the very least, the National League retains ownership of the World Series title for the first since 2021, when they had held it since 2018. But mostly, go Tommy.

The origin of the remorse isn’t hard to fathom here. The Cardinals spent a long time participating in October. A decade ago, they were heading for the ultimate heartbreak with the Giants in the NLCS. But you have to get there to get your heart smashed, so that was a pleasant time. 2024 is anything but nice, because a long rebuild means Octobers will remain silent at Busch Stadium outside of rock legends like Billy Joel and Sting putting on a show.

Edman put on a show the past ten days with the Dodgers putting an end to the New York Mets, and now setting their sights on the Yankees. Formerly giving a very small level of shit about the outcome, I now have a reason to watch the World Series.

Thomas Hyunsu Edman. The dude is graduating in the spring!