Ah, the All-Star Game. People complain about how it's meaningless, but that was always the point. It didn't count in the standings. It was created so baseball fans could see the best players in the National League play the best players in the American League. In the days before interleague play, that was the only way we could see that happen outside of the World Series. It kind of lost some luster once interleague play began, but was still mostly inoffensive.
Until they had a tie.
Then people got mad. HOW DARE THIS GAME THAT DOESN'T COUNT FOR ANYTHING NOT HAVE A WINNER! To be fair, how the hell could both managers run out of players? Joe Torre was part of that fiasco, and he got inducted into the Hall of Fame as a manager! How can you be a Hall of Famer & run out of players? Anyway, people got mad & Bud Selig decided that the game had to have something on the line. Homefield advantage in the World Series. Before that, homefield switched back & forth between the NL & the AL. Simple. I like the idea of the team with the better record having it. Basing it on one game with a ton of people not employed by either team participating makes no sense. They might as well have it decided by the Home Run Derby.
I'm still excited about it, especially since I'll be getting paid to be there! It's gonna be a ton of work & an absolutely crazy scene for sure, but there's nothing like getting paid to be at a ballpark. Like the old saying goes, a bad day at the ballpark is still better than a good day just about anywhere else.
A lot of the fun of the All-Star Game is arguing over who deserves to get in. Of course, they've also made this worse. I remember going to Riverfront Stadium as a kid & being handed an All-Star Game ballot by the usher. You'd punch holes in the ballot next to the people you wanted in & turn the ballot in once you were done. It was part of the experience of attending a game, and when you think about it, fans that actually attend games deserve to do things like fill out All-Star ballots.
I asked Fan Accommodations where they were keeping the All-Star Game ballots this year, and I was told that they didn't have any! The voting was going to be online only. Now people can sit in their basements all day repeatedly voting for their favorite players & never leave the house. (Apparently leaving the house is not a very popular thing to do in Missouri.) You can vote 35 times per e-mail address, which means that your average Internet user can vote 350 times.
To me, this is a travesty. Fans that pay to attend games, or even get free tickets from somebody else & end up paying for other stuff while they're there, deserve to have their voices heard. I'm ok with online voting, there are many baseball fans that live nowhere near a stadium & are lucky to go to one game a year, but taking the paper ballot out of the mix is a step too far. Paper ballots are tradition, damn it.
There are other issues with the voting that we will discuss further in the next column. I have a tendency to ramble for awhile & I don't want to derail the main purpose of this piece. I've always wanted to do an All-Star voting column but never had the chance to until now. We're The Ultimate Sports Blog now, BAYBAY! That means I can write all I want about baseball, or basketball, or hockey, or NASCAR, or underwater basket weaving. Today I'm going to cast my ballot for the National League All-Star team!
Swingin' Stevie Cook's 2015 National League All-Star Team
Catcher: Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants (.297 BA, 11 HR, 3.3 WAR)*
*stats listed in this column were heading into Sunday's games
Possibly the easiest choice on this ballot. Posey is the franchise player for the top franchise in the National League at the moment. That 3.3 WAR (Wins Above Replacement Level, basically the only stat you really need to know) is 1.1 higher than any other catcher in the NL. No catcher is more important to his squad.
1st Baseman: Paul Goldschmidt, Arizona Diamondbacks (.350 BA 20 HR, 5.4 WAR)
As a Joey Votto fan it pains me to say this, but Goldy is by far the best first baseman in the National League. He has the most home runs & RBIs among first basemen by a ton, the highest batting average, most runs scored, highest on-base percentage, highest slugging percentage, highest pretty much everything. If the Diamondbacks weren't in Arizona & weren't mired in 4th place in the NL West, you'd be hearing a lot more about this guy & the season he's having. As it is, he's still going to win the vote handily.
2nd Baseman: Dee Gordon, Miami Marlins (.353 BA, 26 SB, 3.1 WAR)
Gordon is just plain fun to watch. I love guys that speed around the bases & he's second in the NL behind my boy, Reds outfielder Billy Hamilton. (Side note: Hamilton has 36 stolen bases while only batting .223 & having a .267 OBP. He'd be near 50 if he had anywhere near decent numbers in those categories.) He leads the league in batting average at the writing of this column & is 40 points ahead of the next second baseman on the list. The Marlins might have sorry management, but they do manage to get some talented players on their roster.
3rd Baseman: Todd Frazier, Cincinnati Reds (.288 BA, 25 HR, 3.9 WAR)
This is the first position where you really gotta do some thinking. Frazier is tied for 2nd in the NL in home runs, leads NL third basemen in HRs, runs scored & stolen bases (a whopping 8, but I'm counting it as a positive here), and is Jeremy Lambert's & my favorite Cincinnati Red. Being an unbiased journalist, I also have to present the case for Nolan Arenado of the Colorado Rockies. He trails Frazier by one home run, leads the National League with 67 RBI & has a not-too-shabby 3.7 WAR. He's also a superior fielder to Frazier, leading all MLB third basemen with a 1.8 defensive WAR. Second place has 1.0, Frazier's 10th on the list or qualified third basemen at 0.3.
I vote for Frazier, I could understand somebody going with Arenado. Instead, the fans are choosing Matt Carpenter, who ranks 17th in those defensive WAR rankings & 11th offensively. He's having a decent season on a team that's reached 50 wins while Frazier & Arenado are shackled to franchises that are nowhere near that number. Fans have voted in worse players because they're on good teams, and we'll be getting to a bunch of them later, but hopefully this doesn't result in either Frazier or Arenado getting left off the roster since they both actually deserve to be there. Shoutout to Kris Bryant of the Chicago Cubs too, he's having a really good rookie campaign and will be in this slot many times during his career if he keeps it up.
Shortstop: Jhonny Peralta, St. Louis Cardinals (.300 BA, 11 HR, 2.5 WAR)
This is a close one. I could make a really good argument for Brandon Crawford as well when I dive deep into the stats, but Peralta leads Crawford in almost every offensive category except WAR & RBI. Unlike all those years where Ozzie Smith got voted in for doing flips on the This Week In Baseball credits, Peralta deserves the vote here. And as far as we know he's not juicing this year!
Outfielder: Bryce Harper, Washington Nationals (.339 BA, 1.180 OPS, 5.3 WAR)
Many people don't like Bryce Harper because he's immature. He's certainly matured as a baseball player, leading NL outfielders in batting average, on-base & slugging percentage. All that hype he received coming into the league seems well-deserved at this point, and his inclusion on this team is a slam dunk. My favorite Harper stat: He creates 11.44 runs per 27 outs. Mike Trout's 2nd on the list with 8.08. Good gravy.
Outfielder: Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh Pirates (.294 BA, .383 OBP, 2.3 WAR)
This hasn't really been a good half-season for McCutchen, which tells you just how good the 2013 MVP really is. It seems like the best way for pitchers to stop him is by hitting him with the baseball, he's been beaned eight times this season & forty-eight so far in his career. After a miserable start to the season Cutch has come on strong lately, and he's taking the Pirates towards the top of the standings with him. Or at least past the Cubs anyway, they've still got awhile to go if they want to pass St. Louis.
Outfielder: A.J. Pollock, Arizona Diamondbacks (.299 BA, 15 SB, 3.2 WAR)
This should be Giancarlo Stanton's spot, but he's going to miss the ASG with a broken bone in his wrist. He'll also miss the Home Run Derby, which is a damn shame because dude can hit the ball really freaking far. If Yasiel Puig hadn't missed so much time I think he would have found his way into this spot. Pollock has flown under the radar due to the fact that the D-backs stink, but he has the 4th best WAR among NL outfielders, has the most hits among center fielders, and is one of the key contributors to my fantasy team.
I can't believe it took me this long to mention my fantasy team, which tells you how we've been doing offensively. Still in 1st place though! Next time I'll tell you who should be on the American League All-Star team instead of eight Kansas City Royals. Be there. Aloha.
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