Cardinals fans have every right to be upset with Yadier Molina

St. Louis Cardinals fans should be upset with Yadier Molina, despite his years of service. Yadi hasn’t been there for his teammates.

It looks like Yadi may be celebrating retirement just a little bit early.

Molina has left the team twice this season to recover from his injury in Puerto Rico. The events of that rehab are a little sketchy, considering Molina was videotaped participating in a professional basketball game.

Yadi was placed on the restricted list over the weekend due to ‘business matters’, which just sounds sketchy. Those business matters turned out to be his basketball team winning the championship.

Cardinals: Yadier Molina going out the wrong way

Redbird Rants’ Greg Simons was rightly not thrilled with this development:

"“Congratulations to the team and its owner, Molina, but should that really have been his priority when the franchise paying him $10 million this season to play baseball is battling for a division title?  Sure, he’s just missing two games, and he wasn’t going to start one of them, and it’s most likely an unpaid leave, which is typically how restricted list leave is handled.  But what message is being sent to Molina and the team?”"

Molina has earned some leeway, which is why most gave him the benefit of the doubt while he was initially rehabbing from his injury. But to leave St. Louis in the middle of a pennant race for something like this?

Clearly, his baseball career is not what matters most to Molina at this juncture. And for the 2022 Cardinals, that is a huge problem.

Yadi would love to retire with Albert Pujols, one of his best friends and a future Hall of Famer. Whether Molina joins him in Cooperstown is more of a question of when, not if. They have earned the right to go out as they please*.

*The only footnote here, of course, is that they are with the team.