SI Verducci: Cardinals have a chance to be a "Superteam"
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb...?sct=uk_t11_a5
So good are Molina's Cardinals, with nearly 40 percent of the season played, they are worthy of a question rarely asked these days in the democratic baseball world of Bud Selig where so many teams have "hope and faith:" Are the Cardinals a rare, throwback superteam?
What is a superteam? A team that wins 100 games and the World Series. Once upon a time we came to expect our world champions to fit those criteria. From 1975 through 1978, all four world champs won at least 100 games (1975 and 1976 Reds and 1977 and 1978 Yankees.) But we've had just as many superteams in the 34 years since then (1984 Tigers, 1986 Mets, 1998 Yankees and 2009 Yankees) as we had in those four years.
The expanded postseason format makes navigating October trickier for even the best teams in baseball. But something else must be in play -- especially a better distribution of talent -- because fewer teams are even reaching the first hurdle to be a superteam: the 100-win mark.
Take a look at this: the number of 100-win teams in the past seven years compared to such teams in the seven years prior to this stretch:
| Years | AL 100-win teams | NL 100-win teams | Total |
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| 2006-2012 | 2 | 1 | 3 | | 1999-2005 | 6 | 7 | 13 |
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They just don't make 100-win teams the way they used to; the 2011 Phillies are the only National League team in the past seven years to win 100 games, and they lost in the Division Series to th eventual world champion Cardinals. The last NL team to win 100 games and the World Series was the 1986 Mets -- more than a quarter of a century ago. And the last non-New York franchise to be such a superteam was the 1984 Tigers. Now you get an idea of just how rare it is for this Cardinals team to even be considered for that kind of company.