The week in St. Louis Cardinals fanposts

We're a little less than a week into the new Viva El Birdos, and one of my questions about the new layout has already been answered positively: People are still looking at and writing fanposts. (If you're new to Viva El Birdos, fanposts are Cardinals articles You The Viewer write using the same publishing tools at our disposal, and then publish for the edification and discussion of your fellow commenters.)

Already we've had a few really solid ones pop up since the transition, and in the interest of encouraging more and drawing your eye down the page toward them it's time for our occasionally-weekly look at the Week in Fanposts. (Editor's note: On old-VEB this feature used to come bundled with a look at the week in Cardinals posts at SB Nation St. Louis, our St. Louis sports hub. In this brave new SB Nation United world we can now automatically cross-post the Cardinals pieces you might enjoy in Mad Em-Dashes, which you'll find permanently right across from the fanposts on the front page. Check back often.)

Viva El Ran

This one's a little older than the rest of these, but it's worth reading a fink's trip report-slash-photo-essay regarding Team Viva El Birdos's fundraising efforts and not-even-a-little-sublimated desires to beat each other in the Cardinals Care 6K, for which our runners and readers raised more than $6,000.

Yadier Molina, MVP Candidate

On Tuesday, regular fanposter and probable Simpsons reference tmcclure talked about whether Yadier Molina will and should win the NL MVP. With sabermetric evaluation of catcher defense in constant flux, Molina's one of the tougher-to-pin-down MVP cases in recent memory.

As of Saturday he leads the NL in bWAR, in a three-way tie with Ryan Braun and Andrew McCutchen that, well within the stat's error bars, also counts David Wright and Buster Posey. (He leads those candidates in wins above average, having appeared in just 134 games.)

ISO and ISO

On Thursday frequent fanposter Cards Fan in Chitown posted some Cardinals-Cubs photos from Wrigley, and, while he was at it, ran down the Cardinals lineup's isolated power numbers. More surprising: That Yadier Molina's near the team leaders, or that Matt Carpenter and David Freese's are almost identical?

Astrodone

I really love this one by Hardcore Legend, who chronicles the decade in which the Cardinals' nearest, nastiest rivals were the Houston Astros. It's a shame the rivalry had to end like this, with Houston in the basement hunting for designated hitters, after creating all those incredibly tense moments; with Jeff Luhnow now in charge I think we could have seen 2004-2005 redux a few years down the road.

Wild Bard (I'm so sorry)

Finally, newly active VEBer Hoovaloov knew exactly how to get on Viva El Birdos' collective good side: Fixed-verse poetry about baseball. In this case, a night-before-the-Wild-Card recap of last year's ceaselessly twisty finish to the regular season.

As always, you can get to the fanposts section directly at this link, where you can also find out how to write your own.