The managers released their lineups yesterday (I believe). I think the AL lineup is inspired, and the NL lineup is crap, for a variety of reasons. But first:
American League
Ichiro Suzuki
Ivan Rodriguez
Vlad Guerrero
Manny Ramirez
Alex Rodriguez
Jason Giambi
Derek Jeter
Alfonso Soriano
Mark Mulder
National League
Edgar Renteria
Albert Pujols
Barry Bonds
Scott Rolen
Sammy Sosa
Mike Piazza
Lance Berkman
Jeff Kent
Roger Clemens
The AL lineup just gets worse and worse for Clemens as he proceeds towards his former teammates. It works with the strengths of each of the All Stars, especially the 2-3-4 hitters.
The NL lineup is crap. With Renteria leading off, it looks like McKeon is going with a running game, in one of the best hitters’ parks in the league. And he does so terribly. He should have squeezed Kent in at #2, and shifted everyone down a notch - Pujols is far from a #2 hitter. Switching Berkman and Piazza also would have been a good idea - though maybe Jack doesn’t want Piazza and Clemens that close to each other!
But, I think the NL is going to run away with this one. Their pitching is just too dominant, and they have more power on the bench than the AL.
I have only a few things to say about the 2004 All-Star game:
Derek Jeter (.277, 13 HR) should not be starting at SS. Carlos Guillen (.324, 13 HR) or Michael Young (.332, 12 HR) should be starting.
Jason Giambi (.241, 11 HR) should not be starting at 1B. Hello! Paul Konerko (.296, 22 HR)!
Mark Loretta (.323, 8 HR) should be starting at 2B, instead of Jeff Kent (.285, 10HR).
Jim Thome has almost 30 HR’s at the break and he is not a starter!?
This crap happens every single year. Fans vote for the big names, instead of paying attention as to who is actually having the better year.
I just don’t see any logic whatsoever to what you’re saying. The purpose of the All-Star game is to vote in STARS - the best players in the game. Most fans are smart enough to know the difference between a star and someone who had a flukey first half. It’s not the Fluke First Halves Game. If you’re voting based solely on who happened to have a good 75-game streak they shouldn’t let you vote.
Not that all the choices the fans make are good ones - Jim Thome should be starting - , but come on; do you really think Mike Young is that good a hitter? He’s 27, having what is quite obviously his career year. Mike Young is not the hitter Derek Jeter is. He’s not the hitter Miguel Tejada is, either, who would have been a far better choice than Young. It’s silly to pretend Young is actually the best shortstop in the AL. I’m not sure Derek Jeter is either - I voted Tejada - but I’d rather see Jeter than Young.
I mean, let’s take an honest look at the lineups. How many obviously bad choices are here:
NL
1B - Albert Pujols. Is he really a BAD choice over Thome? Pujols is a megastar, one of baseball’s finest young sluggers. He had a bad half by his standards and it was still great.
2B - Kent. Loretta has been a bit better, but Kent is certainly a great player.
SS - Renteria. Fabulous defensive player and only Jack Wilson has clearly better numbers, and that’s likely a bit of a fluke.
3B - Rolen. Easy choice.
LF - Bonds. Greatest living hitter.
CF - Berkman. Injury fill-in.
RF - Sosa. Huge star. Bad first half but hey, he’s a great, great player.
C - Piazza. Super-great Hall of Famer having a big year.
AL
1B - Giambi. Okay, not a great choice.
2B - Soriano. Seems a decent pick; not many good 2B in this league.
SS - Jeter. Shoulda been Tejada, but a fine player and a star.
3B - Rodriguez. Easy.
LF - Ramirez. Awesome player.
CF - Suzuki. Best leadoff man in the league, great glove, huge star.
RF - Guerrero. Awesome.
C - Rodriguez. One of the best catchers to ever don a mask having a monster year.
I see one geniunely bad pick out of 16 starters (Giambi), two marginal choices (Kent and Jeter) one fill-in (Berkman) and twelve perfectly defensible picks, more than half of them no-brainers. That’s a terrible set of picks? Boy, those look like stacked teams to me.
Why don’t they just rename the game “The National League All Stars play the Yankees”? :rolleyes:
[hijack]
This is why Baseball needs a salary cap.
[/hijack]
Jeter’s average isn’t exceptional unless you consider how much he struggled to start the year. He’s been great since then, and that usually gets rewarded.
I think this pick is a bit iffy because Piazza has actually played more games at first base than catcher. However he wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) make it at first. Thome leads in home runs, but Pujols is a much better player.
I really don’t think the lineup makes that much difference in the All Star game. There are usually about four or five cleanup hitters per team and comparatively few get-on-base kind of guys (I count two: Renteria and Ichiro). The other starters are all home run hitter/RBI guys.
It’s good to know that someone who’s not an Orioles fan agrees with me about this. Even among the ruins of the Orioles’ season, Tejada has had an excellent year.
Eat your words, my friend!
Yeah, but the problem is that someone can be a star and yet also have his best playing days a long way behind him.
I know that’s how it’s done over here, but i prefer the system used in Australia for the “all star” rugby league game (we call it the State of Origin). The teams are chosen by professional selectors, paid to do that job, and they are meant to be chosen based on current form and not past glories. Of course, a long-time star will get cut a bit of slack if he’s having a slightly sub-par year, and there are always some disagreements over who should get in, but for the most part the selectors do a good job selecting the teams.
But, of course, i realized when i got here that the actual purpose of the game is completely different in the US than it is in Australia. In America, All-Star games (whether baseball or hockey or basketball or football) are nothing but glitter and glamour, with the quality of the game itself taking a complete back seat to pomp, ceremony, and self-congratulation. Hardly anyone really gives a flying fuck whether the AL or the NL, or the Eastern conference or the Western conference, or the AFC or the NFC, win the game.
In Australia, the State of Origin games are about the biggest games of the year. The hits are bigger, the emotion greater, and the stakes for the fans higher than in any regular season game. No player gets pulled from a game because he might get tired or injured, and nor would they want to be. There’s no adrenalin rush like being at a good State of Origin game, and i’m afraid it’s left me completely spoiled for the farces that pass for “All Star” in North American sports. I’d take a regular-season hockey game between the Canadiens and the Bruins over the NHL All-Star Game every time.
Usually, it’s not a problem. Baseball is the only sport having issues with it because of the tie in the All Star Game two years ago and their dumb response to it (pretend the game is important).
I think the problem can be traced to two things: every team must have one player and the managers feel that they must get every player in. I know that their response is an attempt to make the game count, but I think they never would have gotten into the situation in the first place if it wasn’t for those two things.
Nothing suggests to me that this would be any better a system. In baseball, the Gold Gloves are voted on by managers and coaches and they do a dreadful job; I would guess maybe half of them go to deserving candidates, and some of the picks are plainly absurd. Stand up, Rafael Palmiero.
The Cy Young, MVP and Rookie of the Year votes are voted on by veteran sportswriters, and they make at least one or two idiotic selections almost every year.
I don’t see a lot of evidence that, on the whole, the “professionals” are any better at this than the fans. And frankly, isn’t there a really obvious value in having the fans pick the All-Stars, no matter WHO they pick? Surely the benefits of fan participation are clear?
I admit that the complaining about the All-Star game really confuses me. How in the world can fan voting be BAD? They do just as good a job picking people as the pros do. Fan participation is obviously a good thing and raises interest in the sport.
And the one-player-per-team bit strikes me as being a great idea. It makes the teams far more interesting. It’s unusual that a team DOESN’T have a valid All-Star anyway, and the benefits of having a rep from every team strike me as being clear. Individual players don’t have some intrinsic right to go; the game is supposed to be entertaining above all else, not some boring exercise in statistical justice. Why deny the fans of Pittsburgh or Toronto a chance to see a guy from their teams play? Because another Yankee can’t go? Boo frickin’ hoo.
No, I think Piazza is far too professional for that. I thought he handled it well, now that Clemens is no longer a Yankee I can admit that he was to blame for the bad blood between the two. I was glad to see him get lit up last night.
I like the rule where you need a player from each team. Fans for each team deserve to root for one of their own.
I don’t like this play for home field advantage stuff. If you’re the Cardinals, you’re giving up home field advantage in the World Series because one of the Astros had a bad night. That’s bull.
as to fans voting: The all-star game is nothing but a marketing tool for major league baseball. It’s for the fans so they let the fans pick who they want to see. It’s not about putting the best possible team on the field. It’s about giving the fans what they want.
Dude, I didn’t say the entire lineups were bad. I said every year there are certain picks (usually 4 or 5) which don’t make sense, and are based soley on star quality, not on-the-field performance.
And yes, I left out Miguel Tejada. My bad. Still, Young, Guillen, or Tejada were more deserving than Jeter this year.
It’s more fair because everybody knew that system coming in. Suppose you have a mini-dynasty where you reach the WS two years in a row. In the old system, you’d have the home field one year and not the other. In this system, you could be without the home field both years just because some guys on others teams had bad pitching performances. Or you could have it two years in a row because some guy on a different team got hot. It’s been tradition that home field in WS play be balanced over the short and long term, this new system destroys that.
Well, in Australia the “professionals” who pick the teams are niether managers/coachers nor sportswriters. They are called, appropiately enough, “selectors,” and their job is to watch as many games as possible (live and on tape) with the specific aim of choosing the best team for the job. And there is not one group of selectors for both teams; each team has its own team of selectors, who work for that state, and who have an interest in picking the best team so that their state can win the game.
I understand what you’re saying about fan participation, but i really don’t think it’s such a big thing. At home, while fans might not actually get to vote, they do spend plenty of time discussing and debating who might make the team, and then, when the selections are actually made, dissecting the selectors’ decisions. Also, fans are willing to put up with less participation in the knowledge that the game will probably be the toughest, hardest, most exciting game of the year. It seems to me that, in North America, fans gets to participate in the selection process at the expense of the quality of the game itself.
I know that, if fans voted for the teams in Australia, and if there were a rule that at least one player from each team had to go to the game, the quality of the game would deteriorate significantly. Of course, part of this is due to the inherent differences between the game of rugby league and the game of baseball. Rugby league is a much more spontaneous and non-stop game than baseball, and is not as amenable to multiple player replacement. 17 players are chosen for each team, of which 13 are on the field at any one time; a far cry from the number of baseball All-Stars chosen to fill 9 on-field spots.
I think you’re right that it makes the teams more interesting. I just think that it makes the game itself less interesting.
Now, having said all this, i do think that the key to making the All-Star game better is not necesarily to change the method of selection, but the way the game is played. It’s here that i go back to asterion’s comment about the notion that every player should have a chance to get in the game. I think it’s a stupid practice. Sure, if you want to make a rule whereby every team must have a player at the game, that’s fine. But at least put the best players on the field for as long as possible.
If your left-fielder has hit 2/3 with a HR and 2 RBIs, don’t pull him out of the game just so someone else can get an at-bat. And if your starting pitcher has gone three innings without giving up a hit, and is throwing fireballs, then leave him in there, ferchrissakes.
Chastain, I’d imagine he just didn’t want to. I think anyone can sign up for it.
:smack:
Well, despite Clemens, the NL did a fair job of pitching. And honestly, was Jack McKeon just pulling players out of a hat? Kolb in the 2nd inning, Sheets in the 8th? WTF? Put Cabrera in the field but only give Abreu a PH appearance? Looking at the box score, Torre seems to have a better grasp on NL roster management that McKeon does! He only used 1 pure PHer, compared to the NL’s 3 (okay, not a big difference).
I’m an AL man, but was rooting for the NL. Being a Yankees hating Royals fan does that to you. But it was nice to see Clemens get rocked.
I still maintain that the All-Star game should be USA v. the World. It would wake this country up to see us get our asses handed to us.
