You make the call — just click below to vote. We couldn’t decide among ourselves who is the most valuable St. Louis Cardinal for the first half.
Because while it seemed obvious at firstĀ — Yadier Molina, of course — we thought of Matt Carpenter. And then thought more: where would the Cards be without Edward Mujica? Plus what about Adam Wainwright?
See … not so easy to decide.
That’s why we’ll put it up for a vote from you. Here is our rationale for each of those four, followed by the poll at the very bottom. And good luck with your decision.
To start: my thoughts on the starter.
Adam Wainwright
If we’re comparing the 2013 Cardinals pitchers to cars, we know that Joe Kelly is a Ferrari who sometimes just sits in the garage. Shelby Miller would be a Mustang, because of course. And, before this goes on too far, Adam Wainwright would be an Audi A8. I mean, look at the words Audi uses to describe the A8: Prestige. Performance. Perfection. Truly a class apart.
Perfection might be stretching it a little bit — no perfect games for Wainwright yet, but that could certainly happen someday in the future. Especially given what we’ve seen so far in 2013.
Two masterpiece shutouts — a four-hitter with 12 strikeouts against the Brewers on April 13 and a no-hitter-into-the-eighth-and-two-hitter-overall with seven K’s against the Rockies on May 11. Only Clayton Kershaw has two shutouts in the National League this year, and no one has four complete games like Waino does.