The All-Star Roster: What the voters did right
The MLB All-Star Game will be played in St. Louis on July 14
While I mostly think that fan voting for MLB’s All-Star Game is pretty stupid, I have to give the voters props for the things they got right on this year’s roster. We’ll get to the mistakes and omissions in the next post.
The problem I have with fan voting is that often, people just vote for players whose names they recognize, rather than the ones who are actually having the best season. It’s hard to follow all 30 MLB teams, especially if baseball is not your main hobby or obsession. I understand that, and that’s exactly why the vote shouldn’t be in the hands of fans, especially now that the All-Star Game determines home field advantage for the World Series.
The measuring stick I’m using is Wins Above Replacement (WAR - explained here), a stat that basically shows how many wins a team has because a particular player is on the team. For example, my favorite pitcher has a WAR of 5.5, meaning the Royals would have won 5.5 fewer games if a “replacement level” player was playing in his place. How to determine “replacement level” is pretty complicated, but all you need to know for this exercise is that for WAR, bigger is better.
American League
Catcher: Joe Mauer
Mauer leads the AL with a WAR of 4.0, and it’s not even close. The next-closest catcher is Cleveland’s Victor Martinez, who stands at 2.8.
His sideburns, however, have a WAR of at least 8.6.
Third Base: Evan Longoria
Evan “No relation” Longoria’s WAR of 3.8 leads American League third basemen.
"Yay, I deserve to play in the All-Star Game! This time, it counts!"
Outfield: Ichiro Suzuki
Ichiro is tied for the league lead for outfielder WAR with 3.2, along with Carl Crawford. Crawford, however, was snubbed from the roster entirely, so he will show up in the next post.
That’s it for the AL position players — let’s move on to the NL.
National League
First Base: Albert Pujols
With apologies to Adrian Gonzalez, who is having a pretty great season, Albert Pujols was once again the obvious choice. The man is amazing in every way. Pujols’ WAR of 4.9 not only leads NL first basemen…it leads all position players in all of the Major Leagues.
They may as well pre-punch the ballots by Pujols' name.
Second Base: Chase Utley
Chase Utley is terribly good at baseball. This shouldn’t be news to anyone, and is certainly not news to the voting public. He owns the first-place spot among NL 2B with a WAR of 4.0. The next-closest is Freddy Sanchez at 2.4.
Finding just the right photo for this space was an arduous task.
Shortstop: Hanley Ramirez
Hanley Ramirez has the same WAR as Chutley, and the same spot on his position’s WAR leaderboards. Good call here, voters, because this one wasn’t even close - your second-most valuable shortstop is Brendan Ryan at 1.8.
Outfield: Ryan Braun and Raul Ibanez
The newfangled stats pretty much agree with TWO of the voters’ choices here: Ryan Braun and Raul Ibanez are tied for #3 among NL outfielders.
Who shouldn’t be there?
Check out my next post for why these guys may have been the wrong choices: Mark Teixeira, Dustin Pedroia, Derek Jeter, Josh Hamilton, Jason Bay, Yadier Molina, David Wright, Carlos Beltran. We’ll also look at someone who was left off the roster entirely, but should be a starter.
Date: July 6, 2009
Categories: Baseball, Major League Baseball, Minda's Take, Nerdery, Sabermetrics
