Who's Your All-Star?

We are already at the Mid Summer Classic point of the baseball season. That means we have just finished the voting procedure implemented by baseball that Chicago politics has used for the past century – logging on to our computers and voting 25 times for the candidate we most want.

In a recent Baseball Tonight (seen locally on ESPN), the “experts” were providing their .02 on who should be the final member of the NL squad. Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano, Chris Young, Roy Oswalt and Tom Gorzelanny were the choices.

Barry Bonds apologist John Kruk said that Chris Young deserves to go and pointed to Young’s statistics as reasons why.

Steve Phillips says he would take Brandon Webb over Chris Young or others because he is looking at the possible match-ups later in the All-Star game (needing a strikeout late in the game). This is a very intriguing approach. Not surprisingly Phillips looked at it as “building a team” and trying to plan for various game scenarios. The problem is that Phillips is trying to round out the team based on match-ups to win the game and the rest of the team is put together based on popularity. Considering that the winner of the All-Star game dictates home field advantage for the World Series, Phillips’ is probably the best way to approach it, but the whole team isn’t picked that way.

You know, when I started to write this, it was going to be a complaint of how stupid the All-Star game selection (fan vote) is. Usually a city decides that Ryan Doumit deserves to be the starting catcher (much like Cincinnati did back in 1957 by electing seven starters (and leaving off Aaron and Mays). But when I look at the starting line-up for the NL (we’re not going to examine the AL because, well frankly, it’s the AL) I am amazed at how prescient the voters were.

Russell Martin at catcher – The right choice. LoDuca could have gotten the traditional love or McCann could have been voted in because of what he did the last two years.

Prince Fielder at first – This would have been easy for the fans to go with perennial All-Star Albert Pujols. But Fielder, again, is the right choice.

Chase Utley at second – Unless you’re voting for Biggio on the “What he’s done for the past 20 years” plan, again the right choice. Uggla started slow and could have ridden his success from last year, but the fans showed some intelligence.

Jose Reyes at shortstop – A lot of talented shortstops out there, but Reyes is head and shoulders above all of them this year. Rollins started hot, but his .323 OBP doesn’t cut it.

David Wright at third – Probably the best selection. Depending on what statistic you wanted to argue, you could say Cabrera or Ramirez is more worthy, but being close in Runs, RBI and Home Runs AND having 18 stolen bases pushes Wright to the top.

Now we get to the outfield where I have some issues. No, not because Cub Alfonso Soriano didn’t get voted in; but because Bonds did. The Bonds apologists can point to his high OBP, but he’s been streaky (like Soriano) and doesn’t play everyday due to age and injury.

The fans selected Carlos Beltran, Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. Here’s where I think they made some mistakes. Matt Holiday should be starting. Carlos Lee should be starting. I guess I don’t have a problem with Junior, but Brad Hawpe deserves consideration and he didn’t even make the team.

Beltran made it on past performance, not this year’s merit and Bonds made it because baseball couldn’t imagine him not playing in (hopefully) his last All-Star game which happens to take place in his home park. Fortunately the remaining selection process (LaRussa and the players voting) brought Holliday and Lee on board.

Over the years I’ve heard guys argue that there doesn’t have to be a representative from every team. I always thought they were wrong. Not because they were, but because of the tradition. For as long as I can remember, each team has had a representative. But since the rules have changed (the winner deciding who has home field during the World Series) baseball should do away with every team getting a representative. Freddy Sanchez is having a season that wouldn’t be worthy of All-Star consideration in High Rookie Ball, but there he is, headed for Frisco by the Bay. If Pittsburgh has to have a rep, Gorzelanny should be the one going. So with this archaic rule, baseball still can’t get it right.

Then I started thinking from a ballplayer’s perspective. While going to an All-Star Game as a player would be cool as hell, imagine being the Freddy Sanchez (or Robert Fick) example. Forever you would be known as an All-Star but in your mind you would know it was only because you were (supposedly) the best player on a pathetic team. The only accomplishment, wasn’t a great year with superior statistics, it was having signed with a bad team that had to send a representative.

Again, Bud, if you’re going to do it right, do it right the whole way. Look at the big picture and understand that if you want the game to be meaningful (and you created the rule for it to be meaningful) you should give both leagues the opportunity to create a team they feel is best suited to accomplish the goal.