At this point, the question isn’t which team sets baseball’s gold standard. It’s whether any team is anywhere close to the Cardinals to merit the silver.

After eliminating Don Mattingly’s Dodgers with a thrilling, 3-2 victory Tuesday evening at Busch Stadium, the Cardinals have advanced to the National League Championship Series for a fourth straight season. They are just the third team in the wild-card era to attain such consistent excellence, joining the 1995-99 Braves and 1998-2001 Yankees.

They are easily the preeminent franchise in baseball today.

The Cardinals own a history richer than any franchise besides the Yankees — they will be going for their 20th pennant in this NLCS against the Giants, who also advanced Tuesday by ousting Washington, 3-2, at AT&T Park — though they’re nowhere as rich, thanks solely to their considerably smaller market size. So St. Louis wins far more with smarts and development and far less with financial might.

The hero of Game 4, Matt Adams, was a 23rd-round selection in the 2009 amateur draft who has become a valuable everyday first baseman. He made $516,000 in 2014. The guy who used to patrol first for St. Louis, Albert Pujols, left the team for the Angels in December 2011, signing a 10-year, $240 million deal. He has faded considerably just three years into that arrangement, and his Angels are home after getting swept out of the American League Division Series by the Royals.

[mlbvideo id=”36770303″ width=”612″ height=”360″ /]

There exist too many such stories, of the Cardinals emerging on the smart end of such transactions and decisions, to detail in this relatively small space. And I’m counting only since John Mozeliak took over as the team’s general manager in October 2007. This year’s Cardinals move forward with a payroll of roughly $120 million, ranking them well behind the Dodgers (about $230 million), whom they just sent home, and the Yankees (about $210 million), who missed the playoffs for the second straight year.

Speaking of the Dodgers and the Yankees, a quick word on Yankees legend and Dodgers manager Don Mattingly: He enters another winter with his World Series appearance count remaining at zero and, worse for him, with far more than zero questions surrounding his viability as a manager. Mattingly took the bold step of benching slumping outfielder Yasiel Puig for Game 4, and when the club rallied in the top of the ninth, Mattingly went even bolder, relegating the explosive Puig to pinch running for A.J. Ellis and tabbing former Met Justin Turner to pinch hit for Brandon League. Turner struck out against Cardinals closer Trevor Rosenthal for the Dodgers’ penultimate out of the season.

I can’t profess to know the temperature of the Dodgers’ clubhouse, or how much resentment surrounded Puig’s horrible performance in the series’ first three games. But if you’re going to refuse to deploy such an accomplished hitter even late in the game for one at-bat? You had better win. Mattingly didn’t win. He owns the security of a contract with two more years, yet he owns no more credit with his bosses after this early fadeout.

No, the Dodgers don’t rank second behind St. Louis in the “Model franchise” standings, and neither do the Yankees. Maybe it’s the Giants, with their third NLCS appearance in five years, though they haven’t qualified for two straight postseasons since 2002-03. It certainly isn’t the Red Sox, who have registered two last-place finishes in the last three seasons.

You could make a case for the Tigers, who join the Cardinals as the only current clubs with four straight playoff appearances. Yet the Tigers just got swept by Baltimore in their ALDS, and they are weighed down by contracts of questionable length and value. They don’t look particularly well-positioned for the future.

You won’t find any albatross contracts on the Cardinals’ books, and you won’t necessarily find all of their future contributors, even if you scout their minor league system. Not when they consistently produce diamonds in the rough such as Adams and starting third baseman Matt Carpenter, grabbed in the 13th round of that same 2009 draft.

Even if the Cardinals fail to reach their third World Series in four years, thereby allowing the Giants to record their third pennant in five seasons, this will go down as another successful St. Louis campaign. Another line on a remarkable resume. In Major League Baseball in 2014, no one else comes close to the heights the Cardinals reach regularly.

‘Big Game’ James easy choice for Royals in Game 1

Royals manager Ned Yost has indicated to reporters that his ace James Shields likely will start AL Championship Series Game 1 against the Orioles Friday night at Camden Yards. That would give Shields a third 2014 postseason start before any teammates registered a second — the veteran right-hander started Kansas City’s memorable, wild card win over Oakland then the clinching AL Division Series Game 3 against the Angels.

It’s the right call, Shields will be on his normal four days’ rest, and he clearly is the leader of this staff. Just for some fun with numbers, however, Shields has a better ERA in day games (3.42 in 107 starts) than night games (3.91 in 179 games, 178 of them starts), and he owns a better ERA at Camden Yards (3.81 in 13 starts) than at Kauffman Stadium (4.20 in 35 games).

If the Royals had slotted Shields for Games 2 and 6, that would’ve given “Big James” two starts in Baltimore _ Game 2 and Game 6 _ assuming Kansas City goes with a four-man rotation, as well as a 4 o’clock start for Game 2.

The Orioles, meanwhile, have the seemingly easy decision of using their ALDS Game 1 starter Chris Tillman to kick off their ALCS effort.