Five things to remember as we digest the Cubs’ deal with Heyward

Before all the St. Louis Cardinals fans I know rend their garments, gnash their teeth and go running into the streets, let’s take a collective deep breath and consider five things about Jason Heyward’s defection to the North Side.

1. For those of you who think the Cardinals made a mistake here, I have one word for you:

AlbertPujols.

OK, make that two words: Albert Pujols.

Remember the civic anxiety when Pujols left these parts for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Southern California after the 2011 season? He’s played in three postseason games since then, a three-game sweep of his Angels by Kansas City, with a regular-season batting average of .266 – 62 points below his career mark of .328 with the Cardinals.

The Redbirds, since bidding farewell to No. 5, have played in 42 postseason games, won a National League pennant, captured three National League Central titles and played in eight playoff series.

And let’s not forget the player they were able to draft with the compensatory pick they got for Pujols: Michael Wacha, a 17-game winner last season who will be a mainstay in the Redbirds rotation for years to come.

Bottom line: Maybe, just maybe, the Cardinals know what they’re doing.

2. For those of you feeling blue? Two reasons for that:

The blue of the Cubbies hat, and the blue of the Boston Red Sox hat. First, the Sox swipe David Price out from under the Cardinals, and now Heyward goes north.

That on the heels of the Red Sox beating the Cardinals in two World Series, 2004 and 2013. Adding insult to injury: The Cubs bounce the Birds from the playoffs in their first postseason meeting two months ago.

Maybe this is payback for the Cards’ Fall Classic triumphs over the Sox in 1946 and 1967, and maybe the Cubs are just never gonna forget that Brock-Broglio deal.

Bottom line: Aside from that, what did the Cardinals ever do to these guys?

3. For those of you ready to condemn Heyward, as all Cardinals fans do every time somebody abandons Baseball Heaven for some other mailing address:

Don’t. Do. It.

Heyward is not the Antichrist. He’s not Judas Iscariot. He’s not Lucifer. He’s not even Andy Benes or Jack Clark or Pujols, each of them excoriated by our fanbase after the players left Busch Stadium for what they thought were greener pastures elsewhere.

Heyward, instead, is a businessman choosing where to open his workplace, setting up shop in a locale that just might make him the power hitter he hasn’t proven to be in his six years in the majors.

Whatever you think of Heyward’s considerable skillset, his power numbers will be vastly improved by playing in the Friendly Confines, rather than in more spacious (read: more fair) Busch Stadium 81 games a year.

Bottom line: Don’t hate a player today that you loved yesterday, just because he doesn’t regard the Cardinals the same way you do. You’re a fan, he’s an employee.

4. For those of you remembering when Theo Epstein came to the Cubs and said the St. Louis organization was the gold standard in the NL Central, and said that he wanted his organization to emulate St. Louis:

With the Heyward move, Epstein did something his division rivals would never do.

Nothing he could have done Friday was less Cardinal-like than the Heyward signing — overpaying on the open market to overreach on a player who lacks the resume to justify the deal’s money terms or the contract’s length.

The Cardinals, rightly or wrongly, have never done that. They budget a certain amount they think is fair for a player (Pujols and Price were the most recent examples until the Heyward news broke at lunchtime Friday), and they don’t let the market push them above that figure.

Bottom line: Heyward’s grandchildren, yet to be born, will be rich beyond measure. But Epstein might want to drop that we-want-to-be-just-like-the-Cardinals talk.

5. For those of you without a Cardinals 2016 schedule in front of you, circle this date:

April 18.

A Monday night, 7:15 p.m., the Cubs, Busch Stadium. Dollars to doughnuts, the boos will rain down when the Cubs’ No. 22 is introduced at the plate in the first inning.

Bottom line: I’m thinking they don’t allow klaxons or bullhorns through the metal detectors at Busch Stadium. Maybe they’ll make this one exception.

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 2:35 PM with the headline "Five things to remember as we digest the Cubs’ deal with Heyward."