Cardinals news and notes: Cecil, Thanksgiving, and the CBA

Today is the 27th birthday of my good friend, Nick, a person who reads my posts on this here website whenever I alert him to do so. Happy birthday, Nick. Anyway, because I am a huge jerk, here’s a team of the most accomplished baseball players who are younger than he is (note: I am older than Nick, but I am also immune to your mockery), as measured by Baseball Reference Wins Above Replacement.

Catcher: Salvador Perez (DOB: 5/10/90), J.T. Realmuto (DOB: 3/18/91)

First Base: Wil Myers (DOB: 12/10/90)

Second Base: Jose Altuve (DOB: 5/6/90)

Shortstop: Starlin Castro (DOB: 3/24/90), Jean Segura (DOB: 3/17/90)

Third Base: Manny Machado (DOB: 7/6/92), Nolan Arenado (DOB: 4/16/91)

Left Field: Christian Yelich (DOB: 12/5/91)

Center Field: Mike Trout (DOB: 8/7/91), Kevin Kiermaier (DOB: 4/22/90)

Right Field: Bryce Harper (DOB: 10/16/92), Mookie Betts (DOB: 10/7/92)

Starting Rotation: Julio Teheran (DOB: 1/27/91), Jose Fernandez (DOB: 7/31/92), Kyle Hendricks (DOB: 12/7/89), Carlos Martinez (9/21/91), Gerrit Cole (DOB: 9/8/90)

Pitchers: Shelby Miller (DOB: 10/10/90), Kelvin Herrera (DOB: 12/31/89), Jake Odorizzi (DOB: 3/27/90), Danny Salazar (DOB: 1/11/90), Aaron Sanchez (DOB: 7/1/92), Nathan Eovaldi (DOB: 2/13/90), Henderson Alvarez (DOB: 4/18/90)

Anyway, hope everybody feels just a little bit older now, here is the stuff that happened for the last few days, in case the trytophan (or perhaps just the enormous volume of food being eaten) got to you.

Brett Cecil

I wrote about Brett Cecil and whether or not he could be effective as a de facto LOOGY for the Cardinals. Long story short: eh.

Thanksgiving

Ben Markham wrote about some baseball-related experiences for which he is thankful. It was two days after Thanksgiving, which means that he wasn’t burned out from being thankful, which means it was very genuine!

Labor negotiations

The red baron discussed the looming threat of a lockout and, well, hopefully this piece will be woefully out of date very soon. No offense, RB. I hope you understand.

But who knows? Maybe stuff will happen this week. Keep checking back in on VEB regardless.