Cardinals news and notes: Waino, awards, and fanposts

I am an ardent believer that Baseball Twitter is the best sports Twitter. There are, of course, bad parts of it, but in general it provides a steady mix of passion, analysis, and humor, attributes which I try to convey on Twitter, in life, and in my writing on Viva El Birdos (I said “try”; your comments are not necessary at this time). For the record, College Football Twitter is #2 and has a pretty good case for #1 but, well, there’s a lot of grown men tweeting at high schoolers telling them where to go to college, and that’s gross. And yesterday, Baseball Twitter provided a conversation topic which spread like wildfire.

Brandon Warne, a Minnesota Twins writer for ZoneCoverage.com, posted an extremely simple tweet: “Quote this tweet with the best MLB player ever—who shares your initials (off the top of your head)”. Many people got involved, including legendary MLB pitcher David Cone (he said Dean Chance). I said Jim Fregosi, an objectively wrong answer (though, in my defense, check his numbers—the guy is wildly underrated by modern fans), as the first thing that came to mind.

Luckily, and I cannot stress this enough, God bless the Baseball Reference Play Index. It is literally perfect. I would gladly marry the Baseball Reference Play Index if it would allow me the privilege. But Play Index allows you to search for players by many different criteria, two of which are “first name starts” and “last name starts”.

Here are the top five players in career WAR who share my initials.

1. Jimmie Foxx
2. Jim Fregosi
3. Julio Franco
4. Jack Fournier
5. Jeff Fassero

But hey, there are other writers on this here website. Let’s see their top fives while we’re at it...

Craig Edwards

1. Carl Everett
2. Carl Erskine
3. Cal Eldred
4. Clyde Engle
5. Chuck Estrada

Joe Schwarz

1. John Smoltz
2. Joe Sewell
3. Johan Santana
4. Jimmy Sheckard
5. Jack Stivetts

Aaron Schafer (aka the red baron)

1. Al Simmons
2. Al Spalding
3. Amos Strunk
4. Alfonso Soriano
5. Anibal Sanchez

Heather Simon (aka lil_scooter93)

1. Harry Stovey
2. Harry Steinfeldt
3. Hal Schumacher
4. Harry Staley
5. Hank Sauer

Alex Crisafulli

1. Asdrubal Cabrera

2. Aaron Cook

3. Al Cowens

4. Aroldis Chapman (obligatory: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO)

5. Andy Coakley

Josey Curtis

1. John Clarkson

2. Joe Cronin

3. Jose Cruz

4. Jimmy Collins

5. Jack Clark

Ben Godar

1. Bob Gibson

2. Bobby Grich

3. Brian Giles

4. Burleigh Grimes

5. Brett Gardner

Ben Markham

1. Bobby Mathews

2. Bid McPhee

3. Buddy Myer

4. Bill Madlock

5. Bill Mazeroski

I’d go with the game recappers too but I don’t know all of their first and last names and also I’m tired. Anyway, here’s the articles from yesterday.

• I wrote about which Cardinals have the best odds to win major and minor awards in 2017. I used Michael Wacha for the picture, but is he going to win an award in 2017? Check here to find out.
• The little scooter who was born in nineteen ninety three (I hate her so much) wrote about Adam Wainwright, and how he paid for Ryan Sherriff’s rental car. Apropos of little, this reminds me of the tweet I made after Waino’s extra innings double against the Pittsburgh Pirates last year.
• A couple of fanposts got put on the front page of VEB. Ben Cerutti wrote this post about the Cardinals’ fifth starter spot. Also, andrewstjohn wrote about some sleeper prospects in the Cardinals organization.

Weather should be pretty solid this weekend. This is my obligatory weather mention. Have a good one.