All-Star Teams

Here are the current rosters of the AL and NL All-Star teams.

As usual, there are several people who were snubbed from each team, although some of them can still be put on the team via the vote for one of five people for the final reserve spot.

In the AL, these five are Fransisco Liriano (who is a god and should already be on the team!), Travis Hafner (ditto, but this was marginally less of a crime than not including Liriano), Ramon Hernandez, AJ Pierzynski, and Justin Verlander.

In the NL, they are Bobby Abreu, Chris Capuano, Nomar Garciaparra, Billy Wagner, and Chris Young. Young should have been chosen ahead of, for example, Pedro Martinez (who I thought was a lock on the team but he had an awful June), and it's an absolute crime that Nomaaaaaaaaaaah isn't already on the team. If nothing else, one less pitcher should have been on the roster in order to put Nomar on the team.

These guys, as well as other people who should have been on the team (such as Nick Johnson), are discussed by Keith Law.

My feeling is that Nomar will get be voted in among the five in the NL crowd, and that injuries will allow most but not all of the other deserving guys to get in. However, certain rules always conspire to keep deserving people out. There has to be somebody from every team, so we get people like Mark Redman of the Royals. (In recent years, the canonical Royals representative has been Mike Sweeney, who typically deserved his spot on the team, but he's been injured for practically the entire season.) I do agree that every team should have at least one representative, but please expand the rosters a bit so some of these other guys can make it, even if they don't end up playing much or at all. They deserve to be there.

Now it's time for me to read the entirety of Law's article, vote for Nomar and Fransisco, and then get back to Block theory. (I think I have figured out part of what I need to do to finish some of the analysis in my article that's been in the about-to-be-submitted stage for a little while.)

Update: I am almost done with Law's article. He seems to be in the camp of career value over current-year value as concerns all-star selections, while I tend to be mostly in the other camp. I prefer to see the people having the best years this year, even if that means that a major star or two is staying home and somebody we think we'll never see again gets his time in the limelight. If the current year's performance merits a spot on the roster, then I am all for it.

Other baseball news (still updating): Yesterday, Garret Anderson and Manny Ramirez both got their 2000th career hit. Also yesterday, Gary Matthews Jr. (aka, Sarge Jr.) made a spectacular leaping catch in the outfield. Today, Craig Biggio caught and passed Babe Ruth in career hits. Also today, Orlando Cabrera stole home against the Dodgers when our pitcher fell asleep. (It was a straight steal of home, and it was accomplished without a throw.)