Well, the St. Louis Cardinals season is over, much to the disappointment of all of us at Viva El Birdos and in the Viva El Birdos community. It was an often frustrating season, so why not commemorate it by reflecting on it some more?

For the second year in a row, we are calling on the VEB community to vote for MVP, Cy Young, and Rookie of the Year awards for the American League, National League, and St. Louis Cardinals. We had a lot of fun with this last year, and while we will be making some changes from last year’s episodes, voting will remain mostly the same.

A few voting guidelines:

Polls are open immediately and will close at 7 p.m. Central on October 9. Or maybe later if I feel like it. But try to vote before then.

If you vote for less than the number of spots on the ballot, your votes will be shifted to lower spots on the ballot. For instance, for AL MVP, there are ten spots. If you submit a ballot with Aaron Judge first and Jose Altuve second and there are no other names, Aaron Judge will receive a ninth place vote and Jose Altuve will receive a tenth place vote. Last year, we received a lot of one-name ballots. If a ballot has more names than spots, only the first (number of spots) names will be counted.

of one-name ballots. If a ballot has more names than spots, only the first (number of spots) names will be counted. We will accept any response formatted in a legible and clear way, but my preference for ease of tabulation would be listing the players in a format such as this:

1. Aaron Judge

2. Jose Altuve

3. Mike Trout

4-10. Etc.

Using first and last names is greatly preferred anyway, but this is especially the case for awards in which multiple reasonable candidates have the same last name. For instance, any Cardinals MVP ballot that lists “Martinez” will be disregarded altogether because we have no way of knowing if the voter means Carlos or Jose. Please don’t make us do this. They both deserve better.

preferred anyway, but this is especially the case for awards in which multiple reasonable candidates have the same last name. For instance, any Cardinals MVP ballot that lists “Martinez” will be disregarded altogether because we have no way of knowing if the voter means Carlos or Jose. Please don’t make us do this. They both deserve better. The Google forms formatting is kind of not great on certain interfaces, particularly on iPhones, but it should work pretty well on laptops/desktops. If you’re having further issues voting, let me know and I’ll try to figure out a solution.

Thank you in advance for participating!