2014 All-Stars

The Fangraphs 2013-2014 inclusive search makes it easy.

AL
1B - Davis, Chris - BAL
2B - Zobrist, Ben - TB
SS - Escobar, Yunel - TB
3B - Donaldson, Josh - OAK
C - Castro, Jason - HOU
DH - Encarnacion, Edwin - TOR
OF - Choo, Shin-Soo - TEX
OF - Ellsbury, Jacoby - NYY
OF - Trout, Mike - LAA

NL
1B - Votto, Joey - CIN
2B - Utley, Chase - PHI
SS - Tulowitzki, Troy - COL
3B - Carpenter, Matt - STL
C - Molina, Yadier - STL
OF - Gomez, Carlos - MIL
OF - McCutchen, Andrew - PIT
OF - Puig, Yasiel - LA

chris davis?

morbs is one of those "count the second half of the last season" guys iirc which makes sense since choosing all stars after 30 games of one season would be nonsense

At this point, count the entirety of '13.

I'm the same way, and I even extend that father back--I vote based on established level of performance, with the one requirement that the guy be having at least an okay season (I wouldn't vote for anyone hitting .210, no matter who it was...well, maybe Willie Mays).

Can't see voting for Chris Davis over Cabrera, based on this year (both off to slow starts, Cabrera a bit better), last year, established level, anything, except maybe MVP-votes-I-disagree-with.

I guess I should have checked to see that Cabrera's playing first...I assumed he was. If he's DH-ing, call me Emily Litella.

He is. I don't vote for a guy in his first 6 weeks at a new position, either.

also it's all bullshit

Over his career, Cabrera's had 2644 PA at 1B, 2964 at 3B; Matt Carpenter's had 593 at 2B, 378 at 3B.

Vote for whoever you want. Just trying to understand the logic.

SS - Escobar, Yunel - TB

is this based on what he did in like 2009 or

i love the idea of voting in total (possible) 1/3 season flukes to the ASG. sorry to everyone who has their advanced asg-metrics and timelines etc, but i'm all about voting in people based on how they've done in recent memory. so boring (to me) to see the same names over and over again. i know it's not fair to guys who have monster 2nd halves and have no problem with people who want to reward those guys – but i'm all about going fluklear! (sorry)

who do you think is the leading AL SS right now, TT? There isn't an obvious candidate; by FWAR, Yunel was #1 last year and is in the top 5 so far this season. Lowrie and Alexei Ramirez 2nd and 3rd over the last year + month.

My logic re Miggy is he can have all the undeserved MVPs he wants, that's enough.

(sorry that Q shd be to crunch)

Assume and hope they'll find a spot for Pujols...just looking at his splits; small sample, but substantially better this year as a DH than at 1B.

i shall answer the question anyways. Alexei Ramírez.

surprised Jeetz' lead at SS is as small as it is

fans have AL OF correct thus far, phaps cuz it's so obvious

ok, switching votes to Salvador Perez, Alexei, and Miggy, so clemenza can rest easy. prob to Goldschmidt in NL too.

on the merits, the toughest choice is leaving someone out of the NL OF from McCutchen, Puig, Gomez and Stanton.

having now pitched 28 high-leverage innings for the fifth-worst team in baseball, does jonathan papelbon have any insights into who should be an all-star?

somehow Aramis Ramirez is now atop the NL 3Bs

Jeetz can still be beaten! cast those Alexei votes!

ah, the 2014 thread

futures game rosters: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2014/futures_roster.jsp

updating Morbs' original post, only using the last calendar year (6/24/13-6/24/14):

AL
1B - Cabrera
2B - Cano
SS - Andrus
3B - Donaldson
C - Perez
DH - Encarnacion
OF - Trout
OF - Gordon
OF - Bautista

NL
1B - Goldschmidt
2B - Utley
SS - Tulowitzki
3B - Carpenter
C - Lucroy
OF - McCutchen
OF - Gomez
OF - Stanton

fuck ya – Ontario boy, Dalton Pompey, making the futures game!

I just rece discovered Encarnacion has scarcely DH'd this year so fuck him

Dozier or Kinsler a better vote than Cano imho

@anthonyfenech
Phil Coke doesn't think he's going to make the All-Star team.

NESHEK

needs to be a 2-reliever limit for each team tbh, so ridiculous

anyway can't wait for the backups/actually deserving players to get picked

oh nvm they're already there

no brian dozier, no credibility

god bless josh harrison, but that's a bit much

@joe_sheehan
Dellin Betances over Chris Sale, huh? Proud day.

I'm happy Supertodd Frazier made the squad and I hope he either hits a one handed home run, saves a baby falling from the second deck or pulls an unassisted triple play so more baseball fans will know of his exploits.

Sale and Rendon for final vote

does anyone have any ASG extracurricular activities experience? asking for a friend

ugh twitter hashtag voting

Good luck tonight, DJ Dozier.

matheny picks wainwright over kershaw to start

apparently wainwright was lobbying heavily for it all week, so perhaps matheny was trying to avoid awkward eye contact situations over the next few weeks

not really a bad choice, had no idea waino was having such a good year

Matheny should give Bumgarner an at-bat IMO.

xpost yeah I think Wainwright's the #2 SP in the NL right now, but Kershaw has been otherworldly and probably deserves it more. But if you just go by Wins and ERA (which is what the average fan does) it's a tossup, and hopefully Matheny won't catch too much flak for going with his own guy

Giving Wainwright credit for his extra 40 innings--why he's leading in WAR--seems defensible. I don't think anyone who looks at the whole picture takes this as any kind of suggestion that Kershaw's not the best pitcher in the game.

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/49667/wainwright-has-the-edge-over-kershaw

Does Wainwright have a shot at the HOF? The one thing that may hold him back is his late start--he doesn't really get going until he's 25 or 27, depending upon how you look at it. Otherwise, his case is getting stronger. The usual Stay Healthy, Please caveat, etc.

Kershaw had 5 weeks off and waino matches him in stats. I don't have a problem with it since were talking about like 2 innings max here.

Kershaw leads in fWAR, btw

and yeah he will prob be in by the 3rd

Jeter leading off...would probably do as well with Minnie Minoso at this point. (That's really directed at John Farrell.)

david schoenfield was really mad about that, idgi

farrell clearly trying to play spoiler for the winner of the AL pennant

I agree with Schoenfield's point, but yeah, not worth getting indignant over.

Schoenfield's an excellent writer, but, working for ESPN, I guess he's somewhat invested in the this-time-it-counts PR, and Jeter leading off openly undermines that, maybe even openly mocks it. (Trying to explain his over-reaction.)

Related response from Bill James last week:

Are you ok with 33 man all star game rosters? Or do you think its more enjoyable for superstars like Aaron or Clemente to get 6 ABs (1967 i think)?
Asked by: secondbaserules
Answered: 7/9/2014

I'd like to see 15 man rosters, one player from each team. Each team sends its star; you can jiggle a couple of spots to make the positions work out right. The more players you designate as stars, the less we see of each one. I think a smaller roster makes it more of a ball game, and less of a show.

Wouldn't want only one-player-per-team--must be reasonable middle-ground there.

if the asg were a deeply serious enterprise, jeter would be nowhere near it

the fans voted him in, they no doubt want a big to-do, might as well give it to them

Waino just wanted to follow the shining example of dodgers legend chan ho park

I can't believe ppl are still buying the Charlie Blackmon shit

THE CARDINALS WERE JUST BEING NICE GUYS

If I say I just had this rack playing online Scrabble, no one's going to believe me:

T,E,J,D,R,E + blank

Jetered...

trout finally wins mvp

how did jetes not win mvp

tearfuleagle.jpg

so we learned that Selig is the only person who thinks the ASG counts

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/07/16/adam-wainwright-follows-the-rules-and-pays-the-price/

We've been through this before:

http://espn.go.com/mlb/allstar12/story/_/id/8155762/justin-verlander-all-star-start-was-disaster-mlb

"I know this game means something," Verlander said. "But we're here for the fans, and I know the fans don't want to see me throw 90 [miles per hour] and hit the corners."

Even most Tigers fans forgot about this prior to the World Series.

Looking forward to Wainwright starting WS game seven at O.co.

I hope this had given everyone a brief chance to understand the frustrating stupidity of mike matheny

Imagine him mathenaging a lineup and pitching changes like that, every day. It's terrible

So glad I got to see losing pitcher Pat fucking Neshek last night in the ASG. Thanks Mike.

Also fuck MLB for not doing anything classy for Tony Gwynn. I know they had big tributes and notes during games for like 2 weekends after he died but you think during the mandatory STAND UP 2 CANCER 5 minutes they did during the home run derby one fucking production assistant could have written 'Tony Gwynn' on one of those papers people were holding..

at least fighting cancer a cause we can all get behind... the fuck is the point of playing god bless america every frigging game?

might as well go all the way and have lee greenwood teleported to every single MLB game to sing his horrible USA song

we can also thank Beelzebud for making post-9/11 MLB games an exercise in jingoist-militarist pornography second only to the NFL.

i'm not sure that's bud's fault so much as it's ~america's~

The big call-in show here spent half-an-hour on the Gwynn snub. I hesitate to use the Academy Awards as a model for anything, but I didn't think the host's idea of having an in-memoriam montage of all the year's deaths was a bad idea.

i like joe nichols a lot more when i don't have to be reminded of his hair

pos otm tho, not that there's any lack of "this time it counts" criticism but he conveyed it as well as anyone

selig is such a pathetic little baby

the ESPN overseas relecast did in fact put up a list of recently passed notables.

p sure Conrado Marrero was not on it tho.

Intentional Talk during the 10:00 p.m. hour. This can't be life.

has there always been two off-days after the ASG? could've sworn it was only one

in the high school where i used to have sunday school there was, for some reason, a factoid stapled onto one of the bulletin boards that said the day after the ASG is the only day all year in which there are no games from any of the four major sports, and now the memory of that factoid is tarnished

It's been like this for a few years, maybe since the last CBA.

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, an extraordinary individual whose memory we have honored in numerous ways in recent weeks. The Baseball family has sadly lost a number of people this year -- including Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner, Frank Cashen, and former All-Stars Jerry Coleman, Jim Fregosi and Don Zimmer -- and did not want to slight anyone by singling out one individual." - Fox/MLB

i'm fine with that, it's a good point and i really don't want in memoriam montages every ASG

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CF86KDTWgAAwp4w.jpg

Royals doing very well in the early voting!

royals now lead at every position besides trout and altuve

Has there been anything this extreme since the '57 Reds (losing the fan vote until 1970)?

in general, it is lol, but i'll be super pissed if it somehow screws stephen vogt

and basically anyone who voted for alex rios, who has played 13 games, should be disqualified

Russell Martin a more solid choice for AL C imho

(200 PA doesn't get you my vote, Vogt)

not gonna say russell isn't also deserving, but

russell martin: .269/.360/.480, 2.0 WAR, 203 PA, 48 games at C

vogt: .290/.385/.544, 2.5 WAR, 205 PA, 44 games at C

fwiw sal perez has 196 PA

yes, but if you search Last Calendar Year on Fangraphs, Martin's case strengthens. I wasn't looking for 6 PA/game this year, but someone who has been at star level before April.

eg, my NL OF is Harper-Stanton-McCutchen; i'm sure the third guy's season stats will continue to rise.

(not that ive voted)

have the royals baconed

oic

well my man vogt has the highest war among catchers over the past calendar year in the american league (russell m. is tied with perez in one-third the games tho!)

but mainly i'm pulling for him bc he's a 30yo journeyman making $512,500 and it's gonna be bullshit if he's knocked out by royals fans voting for a guy way back in the pack

Brisbee's "correct" ballot

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2015/6/10/8760073/2015-all-star-game-ballots-voting

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/proposing-an-all-star-overhaul/

this is nonsensical

now eight royals + trout as infante passes altuve

i think we now have trollvotes as a significant part of this

like Ford Frick in '56, Manfred needs to step in for "integrity's sake"

Posnanski: tough titty

http://sportsworld.nbcsports.com/royals-all-star-voting/

hah

Infante just took the lead at second base even though Kansas City fans, in general, DO NOT EVEN WANT HIM STARTING FOR THE ROYALS.

this is ridiculous, and awesome. hell yes I would watch Trout and the Kansas City Royals take on the NL allstars

Omar Infante beheading at 7th-inning stretch

(best context for this is Pete Rose's pregame participation)

Aoki, still an honorary Royal, passes Stanton in NL voting

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/130968754/buster-posey-leads-yadier-molina-all-star-voting

oh come the fuck on now

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/how-royals-fans-have-turned-mlb-s-all-star-voting-into-anarchy-000837604.html

"I'm not saying we bat 1.000," Bowman said. "But it's between 60 and 65 million votes that have been canceled. We don't really trumpet it because if someone thinks they're getting away with it, they'll try to again."

matt adams has more votes than anthony rizzo

Donaldson and N Cruz now lead their positions

AL: perez C cabrera 1B altuve 2B escobar SS donaldson 3B, trout cain gordon OF, cruz DH

NL: posey C goldschmidt 1B dee gordon 2B jhonny juicer SS frazier 3B, stanton holliday harper OF

3 injured starters who won't play, 4 royals

jeez cruz only beat kendrys morLOLes by like 300,000 votes

none of the Royals who were elected are anywhere as bad a choice as Jeter last year.