This story was excerpted from John Denton's Cardinals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

Unquestionably, the Cardinals' Most Valuable Players this season are superstar corner infielders Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado -- or Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt, if you will. Heck, they might even finish Nos. 1 and 2 in the voting in the National League for the prestigious honor.

However, if the vote was for Most Valuable Person in the Cardinals' organization who has played a key role in the success of the MLB club this season, the honor might go to someone who hasn’t stepped foot in Busch Stadium. Yet his presence is all around the team. And instead of giving him some sort of trophy or recognition, a Cracker Barrel gift card might suffice.

Ben Johnson, the old-school, no-nonsense manager of the Memphis Redbirds, has his fingerprints all over the success of the Cardinals this season. Incredibly, the Cardinals have had 11 rookies make their Major League debuts. Usually, when that’s the case, the parent squad is undergoing a major rebuild and they are trying to dig their way out of the cellar in the division. Not the Cardinals, who used the young reinforcements sent to them by Johnson and the Memphis Redbirds to not only steady the roster but make it markedly better.

“It really is a huge source of pride, but it’s that way for the entire development department,” said Johnson, a 1999 Cardinals draftee who has been Memphis’ manager since 2019. “By the time the players get to us they already have that foundation and they’re good ballplayers. When you’ve got players who are already good, they want to work hard and get better and have been taught the right way, that makes our job easier.

“When they get to us, I just try to stay between their ears,” Johnson said. “I’ll tell them, ‘This is how you play the game the right way … this is what the opposition is looking to do to you … this is how we’re going to beat the other team today.’ Honestly, I try to get each individual player what they need because they’re all different. What this guy needs, isn’t what the next guy needs. It’s about learning the player and figuring out which buttons to push with each one of them to get the most out of them.”

Johnson has certainly done that this season with some of the best prospects in the Cardinals' system. Where would St. Louis be without the dynamic versatility and overall toughness of utility infielder/outfielder Brendan Donovan and starter/reliever Andre Pallante? How much more pop do the Cardinals have because of the power numbers provided by Nolan Gorman and Juan Yepez? How vital was Johnson and his Memphis staff in helping Jack Flaherty and Paul DeJong get themselves right and get back to the Major League level?

“Those young guys haven’t just gotten here, they’ve been ready to play and they haven’t been overwhelmed in the slightest,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said earlier this season. “That’s a credit to how they are being taught and how much they are willing to work to get better.”

Johnson, who made it as high as the fourth-ranked prospect in the Cardinals' Minor League system before being traded to the Padres, played in 98 MLB games in his career before turning to managing. Now, the Memphis native is living out his baseball dreams managing the same Minor League team that he and his dad used to watch when he was a kid. And within minutes of Redbirds games ending, he has the TV switched to Cardinals games and enjoying the MLB successes of the young players he worked with before sending them off to St. Louis.

To this day, Johnson still stays in contact with many of his former players and still counsels them when they come to him with issues or questions. Johnson said he has repeatedly sent messages to Gorman, complimenting him on the work he’s put in to be a solid second baseman. Also, he admitted that DeJong’s high baseball IQ, “made me want to be a better manager.”

“After our games we usually all rush to our computers or whatever device we can get the game on and watch the big club, we pull for those guys, we love them and want to see them do well,” said Johnson, who regularly introduces young Cardinals to the delights of Cracker Barrel while on long road trips. “To get the chance to work with those guys was amazing. When you work with them and you see them get better, it’s like you win, too. I got the same buzz from seeing one of those young guys do well that I did when I was a player. And then I can multiply that times 10 because there have been so many of them who have come through here and are now with the big club. For a lot of these guys, this is their life’s work and I want to be what it is that they need to be successful.”