I’m pretty critical of MLB’s practices, so I should mention how much I like that they’ve turned the announcement of the All-Star teams into an event. Becoming an All-Star is actually more significant than anything a player might do in the game-it’s an honor being selected, whether by the fans, the players, or the managers, and the highlight is that moment. If anything, I’d take this off Sunday and TBS and try to get ESPN to run it before a Monday night game in prime time.
MLB is definitely making a push for the balloting to become an event in itself as well, with near-constant updates on it down the stretch. That I think we can live without, if for no other reason than the balloting doesn’t reflect changes in the thinking of voters so much as which teams had a homestand last week. The idea that it’s a horse race along the lines of a presidential election or the like is wrong; there are macro-level reasons why players get their votes, and when they get their votes. I was asked about the in-process voting a couple of times last week, and I had to punt; I wasn’t tracking who was in the lead, who was making a run, and who was in danger of losing their spot. It didn’t seem to matter.
The voters did a respectable job, with some notable exceptions. I don’t think Raul Ibañez is necessarily an All-Star-caliber outfielder, but he was having a great season before he got hurt, and he plays for a team that is selling out its ballpark in the wake of a championship. That’s a recipe for votes. The National League outfield pool, so incredibly deep just a few years ago, has been thinned by age, by position changes, and by league switches. Manny Ramirez is the obvious third choice, but it appears that some combination of his absence and the reasons for his absence dampened his vote totals, both among the fans and the players. It’s not easy to determine how much weight to give those factors, given that time and again current-season performance seems to carry so much weight with the voters. After Ramirez, you get to Adam Dunn, who actually isn’t matching Ibañez’s numbers, then a pool of players who would be just as much single-season phenomenons as All-Stars as Ibañez is. Yadier Molina isn’t better than Brian McCann by any stretch of the imagination, and his election seems simply to be a case of more votes coming from one precinct than another. It’s not right, but it’s OK.
Over in the AL it’s a bit softer, as Josh Hamilton finds his way onto the roster despite combining Ramirez’s playing time with Clete Thomas‘ performance. Ichiro Suzuki‘s slot is permanent, and Jason Bay benefits from the popularity of the Red Sox while certainly being a qualified candidate. Hamilton, however, is a clear mistake; his status as an All-Star essentially being carried by a strong first half in 2008 and one memorable night at Yankee Stadium. He remains a great story; he also remains a player who seems incapable of staying in the lineup and playing effectively over a full season. Any number of AL outfielders-I’d go with Torii Hunter or Jermaine Dye-were more qualified based on their bodies of work. Also, the fans ignored the guy who has been the best or second-best player in baseball since 1998 or so-Alex Rodriguez-in favor of Evan Longoria. Nothing against Longoria, who is having a strong season and is off to an excellent start to his career. At some point, though, you have to get the best players in baseball to the All-Star Game.
The player selections were once again hampered by the rule that requires their second choice be elected when they and the fans agree, so their selections always look a bit weaker. The players don’t seem to bring any specialized knowledge to their picks; they seem to be, by and large, to be voting on batting averages and RBI totals in the current season, and if there’s a defensive component or anything else being considered, it’s certainly not apparent from the results. In some cases, this means you land on the right answer-McCann, Adrian Gonzalez-and in some cases it means you get Hunter Pence and Ryan Zimmerman. Pence was probably the sixth outfielder in the player voting, and the three bench outfielders (with Pence joined by Justin Upton and Brad Hawpe) were all alternate player picks after they and the fans agreed on the starters. Zimmerman instead of Chipper Jones is just a mistake. In these cases, the All-Star process would be better served by turning the roster slots back to the managers. You’d get the same answers in many cases, but better ones in some.
The AL player picks were also all about 2009 performance, with the most egregious miss being Rodriguez’s absence from the team. Longoria won the fan vote and Michael Young the player vote, so the inner-circle Hall of Famer with the .412 OBP and .523 SLG stays home. Again, if the players are just going to emphasize eight weeks of stats in such a way that leaves an all-time great player out of the All-Star Game when he’s not having a bad year-look past batting average, for heaven’s sake!-then it’s not clear why they need to be part of the process. We’re not getting anything from them we wouldn’t get by giving Sully from Brookline all the power. Other than Young over Rodriguez, though, the players’ picks were all mostly defensible. Aaron Hill versus Ian Kinsler is the closest call, especially once you look back further than Opening Day. Again, though, the players didn’t do this, and don’t. For the players, apparently nothing you do outside of April 1 to June 15 of the current season gets you onto the All-Star team.
Because they get first choice, the player picks for the pitching staff tend to look solid. Nevertheless, the NL players managed to leave Dan Haren off of their own roster, even though he’s been the best pitcher in the league and has a three-year track record of All-Star performance. Again, I ask: What are these guys bringing to the table if they can’t see past win-loss records? In the AL, the players put Josh Beckett on the team ahead of Kevin Millwood, which is a rare case of them looking past current-season performance to a body of work. I suspect Beckett was helped by having a strong run during the player balloting period. Other than those hiccups, though, the players got the pitchers correct.
An actual conversation I had this morning:
Friend: Am I taking crazy pills or did Jason Marquis make the All-Star team?
Me: And Alex Rodriguez didn’t.”
Carrying 13 pitchers for a single game is stupid. There’s no other word for it. Bud Selig is the all-time master of solving the last problem and doing it poorly. So we get an All-Star roster that encourages managers to handle their personnel in a silly manner, as opposed to one that encourages them to run a real ballgame. We also get one where the last couple of pitchers are going to be head-scratchers. Charlie Manuel put Marquis and his run support on the team. I get that there’s some room for disagreement, but can we all get behind the idea that if you have more runs allowed than strikeouts, you’re not an All-Star? Please? The Rockies already had Hawpe, so they were represented, and the list of pitchers more qualified than Marquis includes Yovani Gallardo, Johnny Cueto, Adam Wainwright, and 40 percent of the Braves rotation. Maybe 60 percent. Two of his teammates had better cases, three if you include Huston Street.
Charlie Manuel took Ryan Howard over at least four other worthy first basemen, including the overqualified Lance Berkman, and he took a bunch of saves (Ryan Franklin) instead of good relievers (Mike Gonzalez, Rafael Soriano). Simply taking Joey Votto and Yovani Gallardo instead of Prince Fielder and Francisco Cordero would have made this a better team, although Fielder does deserve his slot. (Confession: I had no idea how big a year he was having.)
None of those rate as the dumbest decision of the year, however. No, that goes to Joe Maddon, who ignored everything we know about Ben Zobrist and put him on the All-Star team because he timed his career peak exceptionally well. Maddon took Zobrist ahead of A-Rod, only one of the best baseball players alive. He took him over Jermaine Dye, having about as valuable a season and, you know, somebody with something on his resumé prior to May 1. He took Zobrist over Carlos Peña, who isn’t having quite as good a year with the bat, but is a Gold Glove-caliber first baseman and, you know, someone who had something on his resumé prior to May 1. This was a homer decision, one of the worst I’ve ever seen, and I lived through the Joe Torre Era in New York. Ben Zobrist has no business being placed on the All-Star team, and Maddon putting him there is an embarrassment to the process.
Maddon’s pitching selections were less than inspired, too. I’m not sure how you can weight current-season performance in a way that gets Ben Zobrist onto the team while leaving Kevin Millwood off of it, but he did. Brian Fuentes is on instead of Jeff Weaver, which seems to be a tactical choice; Cliff Lee missed the team, as did a whole bunch of guys so that Maddon could take Tim Wakefield. Wakefield is having a nice season, and it makes a good story, but the list of AL pitchers more qualified for the honor is very, very long. Maddon’s failure to select Jermaine Dye also led to Mark Buehrle‘s selection. Lee and Dye, rather than Zobrist and Buehrle, would make more sense and give the White Sox their representative. Actually, leaving Wakefield off for Buehrle in that case would be optimal. As with Marquis in the NL, Wakefield in the AL is a curious choice that invites the question: How many pitcher slots would you need to actually get the job done correctly?
The fans did a passable job, the players made a couple of bad misses, and the managers pretty much failed. The fans get one more shot, of course. If I were voting-and I’m not-I would add Carlos Peña in the AL. I might leave the NL ballot blank in protest of Joey Votto’s absence, and I’m still wondering where the hell Chipper Jones fits in all of this. Gun at my head, give me Pablo Sandoval, who’s just kind of fun to watch.
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I think it's an argument over philosophy - do you pick the best players in the game or just the ones having the best half-season? (I'm not arguing for either, just saying that there's two ways to look at the voting process.)
THIS YEAR, I would rather see Franklin on the all-star team than Gonzalez or Soriano, even accepting that he almost certainly won't sustain the performance that he's had so far this year. (How can he?) It's not like either of those guys have a Mo-esque track record that justifies their inclusion on the basis of a long and consistently great career.
(Note: I'm not a huge fan of context-sensitive reliever evaluations like WXRL. I understand what they do; I just think the underlying assumption that the context matters that much in grading performance is questionable. Your mileage may vary.)
I'm no big fan of Franklin's -- I just think it's difficult to argue that Franklin was merely a "saves" pick, ala Brian Wilson in '08, considering he has so many other things going for him beyond saves.
OF COURSE Joe Maddon was going to take him, and I'll argue that he should have. You can't have the #3 guy in the AL in OPS in your own clubhouse and not take him to the All-Star game. This isn't Strat. He's not a career All-Star clearly, but the game has always had room for guys like these, and if the object is to win so the Rays can host Game 7 of the World Series, then Maddon is obviously going to trust his own hottest hitter more than the other guy.
I find the Howard inclusion much more egregious, and THAT I say as someone who took a day off work to go to the parade last fall.
If the latter, the argument can be made that a 28-year-old guy who coming into the season had all of 478 at-bats -- in other words, just 75 fewer at-bats than A-Rod had homers at that point) -- and who after the best 200-odd AB of his life now has a career line of .241/.320/.443 belongs with the best 30 or so players in the league.
If the former, however, then grab some bench, Zobrist.
The fans can certainly vote in who they want, and I'm fine with that, but I don't even remotely get why a guy's career year shouldn't be rewarded. Guess what, it's true in all sports - diminishing it as "a good eight weeks" is petty. So if you kick a guy like Zobrist out and he rakes the rest of the year, what, do you send him a box of candy and an apology? It's not his fault baseball sets the game 52% of the way into the year.
Don't get me wrong - personally I like seeing the big bright light players in the game too, but at the same time, I really don't think it makes a hill of beans' difference to the game's ratings if A-Rod's out and Zobrist's in.
I agree with you in the most part, how ARod can be left off in particular, but I don't have a problem with the managers focusing on this season over the whole body of work for those last few spots (Especially if/when it gets down to team reps).
You know what, the game itself is run so poorly, that I only ever root for a tie again anyway.
"
There is also a case that he is the 2nd best. He is pretty much crushing all the others except Pujols in WARP this year(granted Votto was hurt but that should count against him). He crushed everyone but Pujols in WARP in 2007 as well so not like this is a one year thing.
Then, you write this today: "but it appears that some combination of his absence and the reasons for his absence dampened his vote totals, both among the fans and the players. It’s not easy to determine how much weight to give those factors, given that time and again current-season performance seems to carry so much weight with the voters."
Today's description of what happened with the voting is a bit mealy-mouthed. By your May standards, doesn't Manny's All-Star team absence mean we can deduce that the public is also fed up with the PED usage and that it's not merely the media-driven story that you've suggested?
If it's not right, why is it ok?
McCann should be starting, and if the NL were serious about winning, would catch all 9. The dropoff to second best is pretty steep.
Perhaps it'd be more of an injustice if they were hitting at their usual levels.
I have a lot more faith in our ability to measure their offensive performance. And it is really not close. And I'm much more certain of the magnitude of difference in their offensive performances.
I can understand both sides of the issue, and it's not a huge deal to me simply because the game itself isn't. I do tend to side with Joe, though. I've always thought of the game's purpose as allowing us to see the best players in baseball all on one field. I adore what Zobrist has done, but I'm a long ways off from calling him more deserving of that moniker than, say, A-Rod.
For whatever reason many people vote for the all-stars based on that year's performance only and I think that's a completely legitimate way to vote. It may not be how you vote or how you think others should vote, but I've never heard anything official about the 'correct' way to vote.
Joey Votto, WARP3, 2008: 2.6
Ryan Howard, WARP3, 2009: 3.7
Joey Votto, WARP3, 2009: 5.2
By my calculations, that's 8.7 to 7.8, Votto had fewer AB's, for various reasons. Ryan Howard isn't as bad as you want him to be. In fact, he's outperformed Votto defensively this season by a WIDE margin
Votto: -7 enhanced +/-
Howard: +4 enhanced +/-
11 runs. That's like 1 whole win better on defense. Last year Votto was +18, Howard was at 0. Did Votto fall apart defensively that fast?
I definitely would be skeptical about small-sample defensive numbers, but clearly the line about Votto outplaying Howard doesn't stand up to scrutiny. I really have no idea how Votto could have that large a decline. Any Reds fans reading?
As you rightly point out, voting based on one half season will get players into the game who don't "deserve" to be there. From the players' point of view, that's a good thing, because most players don't "deserve" to be there. For the vast majority of players, it is in their self-interest to vote based on short-term performance, because there is no other way that they themselves could ever hope to make the team. If I were an economist, I would say that the players have chosen a rational valuation system.
Color me confused on the Zobrist outrage as well. He's been a 4-win player in the first half and a plus defender at every position he's played since moving off SS.
Generally love your work but I'm a bit confused as to why you're so dead set on looking at career worth when determining the all stars.
None of the other major honors bestowed on a player - MVP, Cy Young, Silver Slugger, Reliever Award, Gold Glove (oh wait, not so much with this one...) - are based on the career body of work, but rather each season's success. Why should the All Star game be any different?
I think it's entirely legitimate to take players based on their performance in this season. There is certainly no rule requiring that All Star selections be based on a career body of work. Perhaps the I fail to see how Ben Zobrist is one of the worst selection of all time - the man is having a hell of a good year. Sure Rodriguez is an all time great player (wrongly or rightly, I wouldn't be too sure about him being an inner-circle hall of famer but let's leave the steroid conversation for another day) but his .523 slugging is hardly Pujols-ian and well below his career .577 - Zobrist's is currently at .598.
I also don't quite understand the outrage over Raul Ibanez, he's a well established player with a successful career who hasn't had an OPS lower than .792 in 9 years and only two of those seasons were below .825 (or if you prefer OPS+ he is over 115 in all but one of the last 9 seasons). His OPS this year is a spectacular 1.027 and despite the injury he's still near the league leaders in home runs and most other counting stats.
That said I still would have left Marquis and Wakefield are particularly rough selections.
I'd also note that irichmon raised a great point about why players prefer the short term evaluation for the All Star team - what players don't want to someday make an All Star team?
Really underlines how bad the rest of the team is given that they're 3 under .500.
If they were to make the team, then we'd miss out on seeing emerging stars - like, for example, Justin Upton - and players who are neither established nor projected for stardom, but who are absolutely tearing the cover off the ball - like, for example, Ben Zobrist.
Baseball should recognize and reward not only the established stars, but also the guys who substantially outperform their peers for a season or two. By Sheehan's lights, we shouldn't do that. We should recognize consistently excellent players, even when they're playing poorly. If we do that, though, then we miss the opportunity to officially emphasize something special about baseball: the undervalued player. If we can do that in the All Star game, then we're getting something right.
Ben Zobrist deserves his spot: he has been one of the best hitters in baseball for most of the season. And his flexibility in the field makes him incredibly valuable to his team. And he's a single example of the same storyline, one that gets repeated every year. I'm glad baseball realizes that extraordinary performances sometimes come out of nowhere. And I'm glad they sometimes get it right by making it a part of their most visible means of recognizing players.
(Though they often screw it up. But that's a different argument.)
Same argument for Howard. You want to use career body of work but his is ignored?
As far as Howard goes...he's 12th among NL 1Bs in EqA, and while some of those guys aren't All-Stars, do you really want to make a case for him ahead of Derrek Lee or Lance Berkman once you consider anything BUT batting?
Ryan Howard has been in decline from 2006 onward. He's a first baseman with a .326 OBP *in a hitters' park* with minimal defensive value and no baserunning value. He wasn't that good last year. At this point, he's pretty much the most overrated player in baseball.
Michael Young, 3B, TEX - Ian Kinsler is a more valuable player (both offensively and defensively) on the same team, Texas was already represented by Hamilton, and Scott Rolen is a more valuable player (again, both offensively and defensively) at the same position. What purpose does Young serve on this roster other than to allow them to roll clips of his All Star heroics from season when he deserved to be there?
Hunter Pence, OF, HOU - Houston is already represented by Miguel Tejada, Matt Kemp has been the most valuable outfielder (by WAR) in the entire NL this year, and is both a better hitter and a better defensive OF than Pence. Again, why is he there? What did Matt Kemp do to Joe Torre's dog to be stuck batting 7th, 8th, or 9th in the LA lineup?
This is the same argument as "it's ok that Ryan Howard finished second in the MVP while Chase Utley was down at 15th, because the writers got it right and gave the award to Pujols". When the down ballot votes still have a measurable effect (pass-down selections in this case, or "high MVP finishes" being used as coin for Hall of Fame voting down the road), the voters have a duty to get it all right rather than give up after the first spot.
First of all, the second place finish could be meaningless. If everyone likes Longoria, then you're basically asking who the Rays would pick (you can't vote for guys on your own team), and that could be something like...
Young 9
Rodriguez 8
Rolen 6
Inge 2
So without vote totals, we can't draw conclusions. I assume some of the weirder players picks in some years are exactly this, where the league voted for one guy and the second-place guy was an afterthought. Shea Hillenbrand.
The second issue...well, we agree on this. The players might be taking it seriously, but they're voting BA and RBI. That's it. So we're not getting anything from them we wouldn't be getting from the fans, probably less than we'd get from the managers, AND we're stuck with all their second choices as All-Stars.
It's a bad process, and has yielded bad results.
I really find the Michael Young over Scott Rolen one weird, since the latter has a significantly longer track record of being a good player, a sterling defensive reputation, a higher AVG this year, and about the same RBI's. Is the fact that Texas is in the mix in the weak AL West really outweighing Toronto's strong play in the AL East?
1. Prior to "the incident" no one really cared about the All Star game in terms of wins and losses, it was a fun game. People voted for their favorite players, players essentially became legacy selections, and the game had a sense of familiarity. But who really cared? Prior to "the incident", the home run derby (on mute, of course) was the most entertaining part of the whole thing.
2. If the point now, when the game "means something", is to win so your league has home field advantage in the World Series, why wouldn't you want to take the best performers in 2009? Who cares what Ben Zobrist did two years ago? Who cares if the fans neglected to vote Ibanez into previous games when he was one of the more consistent hitters in the game? John Smoltz is one of the better pitchers in the last 15 years. He saved 145 games in a 3 year span, and was a staff ace for many years. So shouldn't he be in there instead of, say, Andrew Bailey? I mean sure, Bailey has been much better this year, but his resume is certainly nothing like that of Smoltz.
The bottom line on this point is, it sounds like you (and others like you) are too sentimental when talking about the present day All Star game. Its not a lifetime achievement award, or a members only club where the dues are a 2 inch thick baseball resume. Since the onus has been placed on "winning", the managers feel the need to take who they feel is playing the best now, whether those players are Hall of Fame bound or only catching lightning in a bottle.
3. The game still doesn't really matter. For a guy like A-Rod, how important is making a 13th All Star game? He missed the game in 1999 and it didn't kill his career. But how much do you think it means to a guy like Wakefield or Zobrist? Wakefield isn't an elite pitcher, but he clearly cares about the game, and I bet that he was really happy when he found out. And I bet it means a bunch to his family and his friends too. I don't see ASG snubs as some sort of travesty, I see it as a chance to give guys who might fly under the radar their due, and I bet it means a lot more to them than it does to the guy who is looking at his 12th or 13th ASG appearance. At the end of the day, this game really doesn't matter. Home field advantage doesn't guarantee you anything, but for these guys who will make their first game, I'm sure it will be a huge highlight for them.
Lots of people complain about the Mainstream Media's fascination with 3 or 4 teams at the cost of the rest of the sport. Now is the chance to spotlight more guys in smaller markets and give them some exposure.
In the grand scheme of things, I've got no problem with someone like Ben Zobrist playing in an All-Star.
Really? By what criteria, Joe?
Zobrist hit .264/.362/.568 (a .930 OPS) over the second half of 2008. He's hitting .281/.400/.598 so far this year. That's 439 PA as the best hitting middle infielder in the American League over the past year -- not just some lucky stiff who (in Joe's words) "timed his career peak exceptionally well." It took me 8 seconds to look up Zobrist's second-half 2008 numbers online; Joe couldn't do that before manufacturing more fake outrage than a Sarah Palin press conference?
I also think Joe misses the larger picture of the All-Star game in today's 24-hour ESPN-driven sports world. Is there anyone in the universe who intends to watch the 2009 All-Star Game -- that is, someone who is at least a mild fan of this game we call "baseball" -- who has not seen Alex Rodriguez play? (And even assuming such a hypothetical "fan" exists, is the current iteration of A-Rod *really* the first exposure you want that hypothetical fan to experience?!?)
As far as being the worst selection Joe's ever seen, I can only conclude that he's never actually seen an All-Star game. Just skimming through the past few years' worth of All-Star selections, we see such luminaries as Joe Crede, David Eckstein (!), Mark Loretta, Shea Hillenbrand, Cesar Izturis... and hell, I'm only back to 2005. I remember Scott Cooper. I remember Greg Olson. I remember when Jose Offerman was an All-Star, along with Ron Coomer, John Jaha, and Brad Ausmus. Brad Ausmus! Does Joe Sheehan really think a guy who can play seven positions while posting a .950 OPS is a worse selection than these guys?
Look, I *like* A-Rod. I'm on board with the view that outrage over steroids is overblown. But the notion that it's "just not an All-Star Game" without the 2009 version of Alex Rodriguez -- currently batting .244 and doing his best Mickey Tettleton impersonation at the plate and in the field -- is either Yankee homerism gone insane or the BP equivalent of shock jockery. Either way, I can do without it.
Rodriguez - .270/.395/.539/.934
Zobrist - .266/.372/.550/.923
Recall that Rodriguez had his PED use surface at the beginning of the season, brought "loosey-goosey" back into modern lexicon, and then missed the first month of the season recovering from hip surgery.
Meanwhile, Zobrist has already taken a big step forward with his game over the last year, and adds versatility to his team as a switch hitter who can play six positions.
I'm really not seeing a problem here.
Zobrist is a bench player having the greatest run of his life. It's OK if you want the All-Star Game to be about guys like that--clearly, many people do--but it's also OK to note that you can trace the Game's decline in popularity pretty much to the decreased playing time the best players in baseball get in it.
It's not an All-Star Game after about the fifth inning. It's an All-Hot-Starts Game.
I was under the impression that baseball's declining popularity had a lot to do with a) canceling the World Series and b) the simultaneous rise in popularity and visibility of other sports. That certainly seems to be a better explanation, but I admittedly don't have anything other than explanatory value and conventional wisdom to back up my case.
They wouldn't be carrying 13 pitchers if Torre and Brenly had properly managed the 2002 All Star game instead of burning through their pitchers like they had a quota to fill (they had nine apiece).
Thank you for saying this correctly! Where others might have been tempted to say it "begs the question", you realized that that meant something else entirely, and so instead you said what you meant to say. Thanks!
And I'm not so sure there's anything wrong with that.
Considering the way you hyped up the significance of the Manny All-Star vote, it's pretty disappointing for you to downplay it ("we don't really know why they voted this way, etc") after the results came out contrary to your preference. It seems pretty clear based on your prior writing on this issue and the quote from May that if Manny had been voted onto the team by the fans, the headline of your article would have been "fans don't care about steroids, suck it media." It is unfortunate that you are such a strong logical thinker on other topics, but show such inconsistency when it comes to your crusade against media coverage of steroids.
I think it's a data point in the discussion, just as the raucous cheers for Ryan Franklin next Tuesday will be a data point in the discussion.
It's not as if the All-Star ballot is a write-in exercise. To suggest that Manny is out-of-sight and therefore out-of-mind overlooks the fact that he was very much in sight in the online ballot and on the paper ballots.
This isn't a matter of people mysteriously forgetting about Manny's 500+ career homers, incredible second half from last year and general strange behavior that fans have long embraced and explained as "Manny being Manny," but rather of them remembering that he tested positive for a banned substance.
This attempt at having it both ways is comical.
What drives me mad are the times like in 2007, when Albert "Best Hitter Period" Pujols doesn't even play, because we over think about short term performance.
I want to see A-Rod v. Santana. When Ben Zobrist comes up against Ryan Franklin, I'll probably just change the channel.
Other than raising the dead, what more could Zobrist have done to earn his way onto the squad?
I know Joe is taking a lot of flak for the Zobrist critique, but here's how I see it: Ben Zobrist has an OPS+ of 97 in 4 partial seasons in the bigs (220 games). If that is what anyone here thinks of when he or she thinks of All-Stars, then I will take my team of players with 2-inch thick resumes over your team of "All-Stars" any time.
If you want to argue that the ASG should use the criterion of "who has been the best player at their position over the past 4+ years," you should recognize that a) that's a radical change in how All-Stars have been selected since the game's inception, and b) Ben Zobrist is hardly the worst offender even under that criterion. I get the sense that *you* -- JohnHCh -- would concede those two pretty basic points.
But Joe hasn't done either of those things. He dismisses Ryan Howard as a bad selection despite the fact that Howard obviously qualifies under the "body of work" criterion. In almost the same paragraph, he bemoans the omission of Johnny Cueto, whose pre-2009 ERA is 4.81. Huh? That's a hodgepodge of nonsense, culminating with the rash and hyperbolic dismissal of Zobrist as "one of the worst decisions I've ever seen."
And the contradictions don't stop there. Can anyone explain to me -- under ANY criteria -- how Ben Zobrist (career OPS+ of 97, 2009 OPS+ of 155) is an abomination while Aaron Hill (career OPS+ of 100 and 2009 OPS+ of 119) is a "close call?" I can't come up with one that doesn't defy basic rules of logic and common sense.
Look, we all know what's going on here: Sheehan is pissy that the ASG isn't stocked with Yankees this year. While I'll cry few crocodile tears for that position, if he'd at least *said* that, I could have just laughed and moved on. Instead, I got nearly 2,000 words at a level that would get you voted off of "Prospectus Idol." So yeah, I'm annoyed.
I really don't get the defense of Ben Zobrist. We've seen a million guys go nuts for 250 PA. The vast majority aren't All-Stars. Does anyone think that had Zobrist done this for the Jays or Rangers he'd be on the team?
Instead, in both the original article and your supplemental replies, you've really dug into a hole and made yourself impervious to facts. That's not good writing. That's not good baseball analysis. That's the kind of stuff BP was rebelling *against* way back when I ordered that white-covered book without the St. Louis Cardinals in it.
So let's revisit some of the facts:
1. It's undisputed that the ASG has, since its inception, taken tons of players who are essentially first-half wonders. It's also undisputed that many of these guys -- and I've listed a dozen or so already -- are much, much worse than Ben Zobrist.
2. Your efforts to distinguish Hill ("a close call") from Zobrist ("the worst evar!!!!") are, to put it mildly, kind of silly. After yesterday, Hill's career OPS+ is 99. Zobrist's is 97. So that's a "career OPS+ edge" of... 2. If that's not the proverbial distinction without a difference, I don't know what is.
3. Hill does indeed have 1400 more plate appearances than Zobrist -- 1400 more plate appearances proving that he's a league-average player. Again, that's an argument *against* Hill, not for him. We *know* that Hill's 116 OPS+ so far this year is a mild, not-particularly-impressive fluke. No?
4. Similarly, you continue to ignore the fact that Zobrist demonstrated significant secondary skills in 2008 as well; I've already posted his second-half numbers. So we're not talking about 250 PA; we're talking about 450 PA.
5. Now, one can certainly argue -- as JohnHCh does -- that 450 PA is not enough to build a real All-Star resume. BUT YOU DON'T DO THAT! As I pointed out earlier, you're agitated over the omission of Cueto, who's been comparatively less good than Zobrist (129 ERA+) over a comparatively *shorter* period of time (104.1 IP).
In sum, then, I don't see a coherent argument based on facts. I see an emotional reaction supported a contradictory hodgepodge of assertions. Hill's having a good half-season; he's in despite 4 years of mediocrity. Cueto's having a good half-season; he's in despite a 4.81 career ERA prior to this year. But Zobrist has 450 PAs as the best hitting middle infielder in the AL, and he's... "the worst ever"? That's just a dumb thing to say, Joe. And I think that deep down, you know it.
So it really isn't so much a "defense of Ben Zobrist." He doesn't need it. Other than you, there isn't a single sportswriter in the country who's criticized or even questioned the Zobrist selection.
I guess we'll know a lot more at this time next year.
My defense of Zobrist comes from the fact that I believe this is more than a 250 PA fluke. If you combine his 2008-2009 numbers, he's hit .268/.372/.555/.927 in 497 PAs. Still not a ton of PAs, but it shouldn't be held against him that he was blocked by guys like Bartlett, Upton or Iwamura last season. I think he's passed the fluke stage, while you seem to be stuck on May 1 as some quasi line of demarcation.
He was sixth on the Rays in VORP last season in only 227 PAs. Combined over the last two seasons he's fourth, ahead of Upton and Crawford. If you consider his lack of PAs last season, he looks like the Rays second-most valuable offensive player over the last two seasons.
Longoria - 65.0/836 PAs
Bartlett - 51.6/742
Pena - 48.3/959
Zobrist - 45.6/497
Upton - 42.3/989
Crawford - 37.6/844
Buehrle also has had a far more accomplished career (lower ERA, WHIP, more wins).
Other than the fact that Lee plays for the beloved Indians,how in the world does Cliff Lee belong on the all star team?
Buehrle is 4th in WHIP and 7th in ERA and doesn't belong on the team?
Please.
Think on that one a bit, there, Joe.
If on March 15 the idea of you being an All-Star would have been silly, then no amount of performance gets you there, in my book. Aaron Hill had some kind of record of being that kind of player. Ben Zobrist, 2008 splits aside, didn't.
Really unbelievable arguments coming from you, whose work I respect. You're digging your way out of a hole with predictable results.
Vote for Pablo!
.276/.373/.581. And he would look very good coming off the bench late against a right-handed AL pitcher.
If the fans, players, and managers have a different conception of the All-Star game than you do, maybe they're not the ones getting it wrong.
There is no contradiction here. That much is true.
First, you are arguing at the margins--the last couple roster spots. Buck up, Joe! There are plenty of stars to go around. And the presence of Jason Marquis is unlikely to affect how fans remember this game. We seemed to get through the Steinbach Crisis of '88 pretty well. Plus, the margins themselves are set by Selig. So take the last 3 players from each roster and just put that on his tab.
But the real reason you stew in your outrage alone gets at something fundamental in how you watch and understand baseball. Your vision of the Joe Sheehan All-Star game is remarkably stale and uninspired. Quite frankly, nobody wants to watch your game. Nobody wants to watch a game whose invites are sent out before the season, its qualifications based on aggregate stats over a period of years.
Fans turn out each season--indeed, each night--with a sense of wonder, a belief that in any given year, on any given night, anything can happen. That's why we don't get outraged when a 28 year-old erstwhile utility guy gets a spot, or why we vote for a 37 year-old enjoying the best two months of his career. It is not because we (fans, players, managers) don't understand what it means to be an All-Star, or that we think Ben Zobrist is superior to Alex Rodriguez. It is because having those players in there reminds us of why this game is so damn good. And why we keep turning out.
But "wonder" isn't part of the calculus at BP. And that's OK. Your unceasing cynicism is responsible for some real breakthroughs is how the game is understood. It just happens to be a liability here.
So Joe's clearly sarcastic comment "I suppose this would explain the increased interest in the game, and its growing stature, over the last quarter-century, as the stars have played less and the non-stars more" got me thinking - has the All-Star Game really decreased in interest relative to the interest in baseball?
So, using the ASG TV ratings as representative of the interest in the All-Star Game and World Series TV ratings as a proxy for interest in baseball in general (not perfect certainly - thanks to baseball-almanac.com for all the data), I did a simple regression of the data (since 1968, excluding the 1994 non-World Series year).
The results of the regression were statistically significant and the r-squared of .734 suggests that most of the variability in the ASG ratings can be explained by(though clearly not caused by)the variation of the WS ratings.
Comparing the predicted ASG rating with the actual does show us something more. In the more recent data (since 1989), the model much more often than not predicts a higher rating than actual. And the exceptions to this rule all seem to be in years were the World Series ratings were down relative to the surrounding years (2008, 2006, 1998, 1993 and 1989), suggesting that the overperformance in these years was really due to underprediction from the model, perhaps due to a WS that didn't fully capture the public's attention for whatever reason.
Since the recent data underperforms the model, that does suggest that something else is driving interest in the ASG lower than that of the World Series/baseball in general. Maybe Joe's right and the reason is that its no longer a game primarily populated by the elite players. Or maybe other Tuesday night programming is just SO compelling that people can't drag themselves away (doesn't seem to be the case based on my own personal tastes :) It also suggests that making the game "count" has failed in its attempt to make it more appealing.
In any event, I am happy to see the Zobrist's, Marquis' and Wakefield's of the world get their chance for the limelight, however underserving they may be. Missing the game once won't likely matter to the Manny's and ARod's of the world but it sure will mean a lot to these guys. I'm happy to see them make it but its still not enough to get me to watch this meaningless exhibition - get on with the games that count, I say.
Nothing like telling people what they should like.
1) All Star Game
2) Hall of Fame
3) Any team, player, or organization in the Eastern division of either league
So, basically, I'm on the same team as Joe Sheehan, and you should stop ribbing the man for telling the truth that we all know deep in our hearts to be true. Ben Zobrist isn't an All-Star by any means, he never will be again, and A-Rod, future Hall of Fame, even with the steroids (He apoligised, why can't we forgive and forget. Yeah, he cheated for a while, but don't take away what he did before and after that period) was robbed.
I'm sorry straightoutofhxc if I offended you, at that moment, I was a little frusterated that A-Rod didn't make it. People look a little too much at the triple stat line sometimes, and I may have committed that mistake. What I'm saying is, Zobrist could be a good player, but when you look at the body of work, it just looks like a fluke. Again, I don't know, and I should do a little more research before I chime in on hot topics.
P.S I'm still in the same boat with Joe, but I'm now willing to let other people's views in. Thank you all for knocking some since in my head.