Tagged: ALL-STAR GAME

MY ANNUAL ALL-STAR GAME RANT

I’m not going to get into who should or should not have been named to the All-Star teams. However, if managers continue to pick their own players over more  deserving ones, maybe the Commissioner’s Office should consider naming the substitutes instead. Case in point was Charlie Manual’s decision to pick Jayson Werth to replace the injured Carlos Beltran. Werth is having a solid season, but his .268 average hardly merits All-Star consideration. Carlos Lee and Matt Kemp are having better seasons. Now the entire Phillies outfield will be on the team after Shane Victorino was voted in by the fans as the “33rd” player.

And what about Ryan Howard? He’s hitting all of .253. How about Derrek Lee instead?

Joe Madden chose Nelson Cruz to replace the injured Torii Hunter. What about Jermaine Dye or Adam Lind both hitting much better than Cruz’ .262?

I have a hard time with endorsing .260 hitters as “All-Stars” especially when there are better players left off the team.

The biggest problem with the fans’ vote this year was choosing Josh Hamilton who has been out nearly two months.

It was good to see that they added another player to the rosters to make sure the teams do not run out of pitchers. But the player chosen should’ve have been a relief pitcher. With more and more dependence on the bullpens to determine outcomes of the games, those relief pitchers best able to hand a lead over to the closer deserve merit. There is even an official stat for this now – the hold. Under this idea, the two pitchers who should be named are the Giants Jeremy Affeldt and the Tigers Bobby Seay. Each have 18 holds, tops in either league. Affeldt has a sparkling 1.34 ERA while Seay is at a respectable 3.12.

This idea makes so much sense that it’s bound to be ignored for infinity.

Baseball still has the best All-Star game of all the major sports but it would be even better if more deserving players were named.