2011 All-Stars

The 2011 Major League All-Star rosters were announced today. As has been the case for the last several years, the final spot on each team will be decided by fan vote. (The fans get to choose one out of five players for each league.) Naturally, there will also be replacements based on injuries and so on.

Here are the current lists of National League and American League all-stars.

Some of the players obviously deserve to be there, and it's nice to see people like Jose Bautista and Alex Avila (who won the balloting at catcher after a late push) be deserving starters in the American League. But then one also sees Derek Jeter starting for the American League even though he has done all of jack and shit all year. This year's Mike Sweeney Memorial Royals All-Star (MSMRAS) is reliever Aaron Crow, the latest in the recent trend of setup men having fabulous years making the team. Rob Neyer discussed the American league snubs, and Paul Konerko is by far the most ridiculous omission. (He is one of the five players for whom the fans can vote, so presumably he'll make it before all is said and done.) Yankee CC Sabathia and Tiger Jhonny Peralta are two more serious snubs, and neither of them is even among the five players for whom the fans can vote.

The National League has had its usual mixture of good and bad picks. I'm very pleased to see Matt Kemp starting, and it's great that Lance Berkman's comeback year is being recognized. But Placido Polanco's start at third base annoys me. In fact, it's a weak year for AL catchers and NL third basemen, so Russell Martin is the AL backup catcher (and he's been awful since his strong start) and Chipper Jones is the NL reserve third sacker (in recognition of his career rather than his 2011 season). The two best choices for third basemen in the NL this year are in fact Chase Headley and Aramis Ramirez, but their stats aren't exactly superb, so the pick of Chipper is certainly defensible. Picking Polanco is not. Shane Victorino, Andrew McCutchen, and Ian Kennedy lead the National League snubs.