Stanford's best striker -
washingtonismoney - 05-14-2018
In a twist, Stanford's best striker in MLS is ... Corey Baird. He's up to 3 goals and 1 assist on the young season so far after a neat finish against DC United:
https://twitter.com/RealSaltLake/status/996089007317569536
In a "classic MLS" move, Baird's -- at least temporarily -- won the starting job over one teammate paid over $1 million a year. Baird is making a cool $52k or so.
RE: Stanford's best striker -
PVTree - 05-15-2018
A little Madsenesque dancing to celebrate the goal. Hope he has many more this season.
RE: Stanford's best striker -
washingtonismoney - 06-04-2018
Update -- here's a joint profile of Baird and the (sadly injured) Jordan Morris from the Salt Lake--Seattle game over the weekend:
https://www.sltrib.com/sports/rsl/2018/06/01/former-stanford-roommates-jordan-morris-and-corey-baird-now-opponents-when-rsl-and-sounders-meet/
Baird got another goal on Saturday, and then essayed this cute little shot (it missed, but sometimes you don't care):
https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2018-06-02-real-salt-lake-vs-seattle-sounders-fc/details/video/156507
Could have an argument but Baird might be the best rookie in MLS this year. (For various reasons this is a less important distinction than in other leagues, but still cool.)
RE: Stanford's best striker -
washingtonismoney - 09-30-2018
Baird bangs in another goal for Real Salt Lake -- potentially a critical one in their quest to make the playoffs. Baird's scored 7 goals and made 4 assists in about 1700 minutes this year, a very respectable rookie return.
RE: Stanford's best striker -
muiron - 09-30-2018
One correction - the MLS, unlike the entire rest of the soccer world, runs its season from March to October, not August to May. So each team is down to about its last three or four matches. But, yes, it is a surprise that Corey is the top Card in the league this year. Tomas Hilliard-Arce is playing behind some experienced talent at the LA Galaxy and hasn't gotten much time, and Jordan Morris has been hurt. Brandon Vincent has played almost every minute and started all but one match for the Chicago Fire, but defenders don't get much attention - though he probably has had the best year of any Card alum in the MLS. We probably have some other, older players still in the League - Chad Marshall is with the Sounders and has been named defender of the year three times ... but at 34 I don't follow Seattle enough to know how big a role he has had.
Last year's great goal scorer, Foster Langsdorf, has been scoring up a storm - 14 goals! - but for a USL team, the second team for the Portland Timbers. It will be interesting to see what happens to him.
RE: Stanford's best striker -
washingtonismoney - 10-20-2018
Baird had a monster game -- 1 goal, and 1 assist, but probably should've had more of both -- against New England to get his Salt Lake team one step closer to the playoffs. At 8 goals, 5 assists, he's definitely the rookie of the year and possibly a US national team call-up in January.