That led to a discussion among some of the readers here as to the best Cardinal ever born in the land up North. Though the players competed in many different eras and of course played different positions, the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) stat gives us a comparison point to identify the best Canadian Cardinal of all time.

While many past and present members of the Cardinals system have played (and coached) in Canada – the Cardinals once had a minor league team in Hamilton, Ontario in fact – they will not be included here since they were not born in Canada. That group includes such luminaries as Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan (teammates with the Triple-A Vancouver Mounties in the Oakland system in 1968) , Chris Carpenter and Kyle Lohse.

New Cardinals bullpen catcher Jamie Pogue is a Canadian by birth (Guelph, Ontario), but not having reached the majors, he and his peers are also eliminated from consideration. (Interestingly, no Canadian has been a full-time manager in the majors since George Gibson of the 1934 Pittsburgh Pirates. Pogue has something to shoot for.)

In the table below, I listed all the native-born Canadian Hall of Famers that played for the Cardinals as well as all other Canadians to appear in the majors for the organization since 1925. The tables are sorted by the highest single-season WAR as a Cardinal.

As the data indicates, an old-time player, outfielder Tip O’Neill, had both the best single-season and total stint with St. Louis of any of the Canadians. With the Browns of the American Association in 1884-1889 and again in 1891, the Ontario native amassed 28.9 WAR, including 8.1 in 1887. However, since the Cardinals sadly disavow records set prior to the National League years beginning in 1892, we will place an asterisk next to O’Neill’s name and move down the list.

Pitcher Reggie Cleveland is hereby proclaimed the Cardinals MVCP, or Most Valuable Canadian Player of the modern era, though his total was just 4.7 WAR over five seasons with St. Louis. The right-hander’s best season was a 3.6 WAR 1973, his last with the club, also the best single year by a Canadian Cardinal in the modern era. (As a point of comparison, non-Canadian Carpenter’s best individual season was 5.9 WAR in 2009.)

As Cleveland’s excellent and in-depth SABR biography relates, Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst was unhappy to see the pitcher go. Red said the following when Cleveland was dealt to the Red Sox following the 1973 season, “He’s the best I have.”

Of course, Larry Walker was the finest player of this group, hands down, but was slowed by chronic injuries by the time he joined St. Louis at the end of a fine career. Walker’s best year with St. Louis was his only full season with the club and his last as a player, as he produced 2.9 WAR in 2005.

Alas, Cormier’s best St. Louis season is only fifth on the list, fourth among modern players, behind O’Neill, Cleveland, Walker and Ron Taylor.

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Over on the main The Cardinal Nation site on Sunday, the feature article was from friend and fellow SABR member Bill Gilbert. It handicaps the chances of the former Major League Baseball players on this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballot using Bill James’ Win Shares.

Four ex-St. Louis Cardinals are among the 33 names competing for votes, but Gilbert forecasts that none of the four will be elected into the Hall of Fame in 2011. Two are holdovers in Mark McGwire and Lee Smith and two are first-timers, Larry Walker (pictured upon his induction into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame) and Tino Martinez.

Let’s look at each of the four.

Mark McGwire

By all measures, McGwire would seem to have the on-field credentials for Hall election. Voters have been torn over his candidacy due to the steroids issue and that may continue indefinitely.

Big Mac’s admission last winter that he used steroids in an attempt to recover from injury during his playing days but his denial that those substances boosted his on-field performance did not help his standing with the voters. In fact, he was one of the few players on the 2010 ballot whose support dropped from year to year. McGwire garnered approximately 23.5 percent of the vote in both 2008 and 2009, but slipped to just under 22 percent approval in 2010.

With no significant new revelations about the steroids era this past year, one might look at any uptick or downturn in McGwire’s 2011 votes to be a reflection of feelings over his return to the game. He is of course heading into his second season as the Cardinals hitting coach. At the time of 2010 balloting, there was still considerable concern over the media circus that might ensue over McGwire’s baseball re-entry. That was handled without significant incident and has died down to almost nothing since.

Lee Smith

Smith was one of the dominant relievers of any era, though his then-record of 478 career saves is downgraded by some as being a by-product of the evolution to the one-inning specialist.

Until another former Cub-Cardinal, Bruce Sutter was inducted after tossing just 1,042 career innings, no pitcher with fewer than 1,700 frames had made it to Cooperstown. Smith finished with 1,289. At this point, only five in the Hall are considered to have been primarily relievers – Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, Goose Gossage and Sutter.

Smith’s voting support has slowly crept up into the upper 40 percent range, but is far away from the 75 percent needed for induction. Despite being eligible to remain on the ballot until 2017, he is going to need a much more aggressive push of support to make it.

Larry Walker

Walker is an interesting case. Gilbert’s Win Shares score places him third among first-year candidates behind Rafael Palmeiro and Jeff Bagwell and just ahead of John Olerud. Gilbert sees Walker securing more than the five percent of the vote needed to remain on the ballot, but fall short of the needed 75 percent for induction.

The former MVP (1997) has three Silver Slugger Awards, was a five-time All-Star and owns seven Gold Gloves, yet his Hall candidacy seems in a gray area.

Of the ten players listed at Baseball-Reference.com as having the closest career similarity to Walker, only four are in the Hall. They are Duke Snider, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Mize and Chuck Klein. On the other hand, two of the top four are Walker’s former teammates, Ellis Burks and Moises Alou, players seemingly destined to land in the Hall of the Very Good, not Cooperstown. Contemporaries in the top ten include some other borderline candidates, Vladimir Guerrero, Edgar Martinez and another duo of ex-Walker teammates, Jim Edmonds and Todd Helton.

As a point of comparison, Martinez garnered 36.2 percent of the vote in 2010, his first year of eligibility.

Tino Martinez

Needless to say, Tino Martinez is a celebrated New York Yankee who found himself in St. Louis for two unhappy late-career seasons, 2002 and 2003. Having been a very good player during four World Championships with New York means Tino may pick up a handful of recognition votes, but his numbers, including 339 home runs, are not Hall-worthy. Interestingly, among those in Tino’s top ten similarity scores is another former Cardinals and Yankees first sacker, Jack Clark.

Bios of all 33 candidates can be found at the Baseball Hall of Fame website. Results of the 2011 vote taken by 10-plus year members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America will be announced on January 5 and winners will be enshrined on July 25 in Cooperstown, New York.

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When I read that the Toronto Sun documents the Top 100 Most Influential Canadians in Baseball every year, I thought the same thing you likely did – “They probably don’t have enough people to fill out the list!”

Of course, that isn’t really the case. In fact, as I scanned the list, I saw a number of familiar names, with news included for several of them.

At number 17, down from number 11, is none other than former Cardinals outfielder Larry Walker. From the looks of it, the 42-year-old may be splitting his March time between two spring camps, that of the Cardinals as well as Team Canada as they prepare for the World Baseball Classic.

If they all suit up, players like Justin Morneau (#4 on the top 100), Ryan Dempster (#16), Russell Martin (#32), Jason Bay (#35), Matt Stairs (#36), Joey Votto (#54) and Jeff Francis (#56) should help make the Canadians be competitive at least.

Still, while Pool C games will be at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, Team USA is in the same bracket as the Canadians, making the team from the North a longshot to survive into the second round.

17. Larry Walker, former NL slugger, coach Team Canada (11).

He lives in Jupiter, Fla. and is a part-time coach with the Cardinals each spring. He will be north of the border: Jan. 24th for the Baseball Canada banquet; in March, with the WBC team and in July when he’ll be inducted into the Canadian Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. The Maple Ridge, B.C. product is the finest Canadian position player the country has produced.

Interestingly, Walker was already inducted into “Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame” in late 2007, so this one is undoubtedly for baseball only. Yet the website of the baseball Hall of the northland says inductees aren’t announced until February. Perhaps Walker is such a lock, the paper is counting it as a done deal. At any rate, good for him.

Long-time Cardinals first base coach Dave McKay is up 12 places this year to number 23. In case you missed it, for Boxing Day, MLB.com ran a nice feature about Cody’s Dad and La Russa’s confidant.

“23. Dave McKay, coach, St. Louis Cardinals (35).

The first base coach is in his 13th season with the Cards and his 23rd season with manager Tony La Russa. When McKay talks in organizational meetings, La Russa listens.”

I don’t know that the Canadian writer who typed this has ever actually been in a Cardinals organizational meeting, but his assertion is likely valid nonetheless. I would add that I honestly believe that McKay is one of the nicest guys around.

And what list of Canadian Cardinals would ever be complete without Stubby Clapp, the second baseman whose number 10 was the first ever retired by the Memphis Redbirds, the club for which he played from 1999 though 2002?

Despite turning 36 years old next month, the ever-popular veteran of numerous international competitions is going to play for Team Canada once again.

“43. Stubby Clapp, hitting coach, class-A Greenville (27).

Though the Windsor, Ont. native is coaching, the Astros were good enough to give him time off to play in the pre-Olympic qualifier in Taiwan, the Olympics and he’ll be around for the WBC in a back-up role.”

One other name caught my eye at #95, that of Hazel Mae (her real name), a personality for the new MLB Network. A former commentator on the Red Sox’ network NESN, the Philippine-born Toronto resident definitely seems up to her big new assignment.