2009 AL All-Star Ballot
A month away from the midsummer classic, today we’ll look at my ballot for the 2009 All-Star teams. We’ll do the American League first, then tackle the NL tonight. The starter will be listed first, followed by the reserves.
Catcher: Joe Mauer (MIN), Victor Martinez (CLE), Mike Napoli (LAA)
The first two are no-brainers, and Napoli gets the edge over Posada due to quantity of playing of time.
First Base: Kevin Youkilis (BOS), Justin Morneau (MIN), Mark Teixeira (New York)
With apologies to Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Pena, and Russell Branyan. First base is just a ridiculously loaded group in the AL this year. With the game being played in an NL park, meaning no DH, they can’t carry four first baseman.
Second Base: Ian Kinsler (TEX), Dustin Pedroia (BOS), Aaron Hill (TOR)
You could really make a case for any of these three as the starter, and I wouldn’t argue with you.
Shortstop: Jason Bartlett (TB), Derek Jeter (NY), Marco Scutaro (TOR)
Bartlett is second in the AL in wOBA and playing quality defense at shortstop. Jeter will get the starting nod, of course, but you can’t really have a better two months than Bartlett just had.
Third Base: Evan Longoria (TB), Alex Rodriguez (NY), Brandon Inge (DET)
Inge is flying under the radar, but having a really, really good season. There’s no real argument for anyone besides those three.
Outfield: Ichiro Suzuki (SEA), Torii Hunter (LAA), Carl Crawford (TB), Nelson Cruz (TEX), Adam Jones (BAL), Jason Bay (BOS)
The difference in park effects pushed Ichiro ahead of Cruz for a starting job, but either choice would be fine. You could make an argument for Bay ahead of Crawford, but they’re both having fantastic years, and the starting line-up could use another LH hitter in it.
Starting Pitchers: Zack Greinke (KC), Justin Verlander (DET), Roy Halladay (TOR), Cliff Lee (CLE), Felix Hernandez (SEA), Edwin Jackson (DET), Dallas Braden (OAK)
Good luck, National League hitters. Braden is Oakland’s token rep, by the way.
Relief Pitchers: Frank Francisco (TEX), Mariano Rivera (NY), Scott Downs (TOR), Matt Thornton (CHI)
Downs and Thornton deserve some recognition for the outstanding years they’re having, and the pitching staff leans heavily to the right-hand side, so having a couple of shut down lefty relievers is a nice bonus.
Just Missed It Guy: Ben Zobrist. His positional flexibility will let him replace whoever pulls out. He deserves to go to St. Louis, and he probably will.
Final tallies by team:
Four: New York, Toronto
Three: Tampa Bay, Boston, Texas, Detroit
Two: Seattle, Cleveland, Minnesota, Los Angeles
One: Chicago, Oakland, Baltimore, Kansas City
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
teixeira should be the AL 1B… only slightly ahead of morneau for defense, their batting stats are essentially the same… youkilis has no right being on that list.
you only have to look at BABIP to understand the difference in their batting stats
The allstar game, to me, isn’t about “what would normally happen given the underlying batted ball/contact rate profiles”, it’s about what actually happened. Youkilis may be having a hugely “lucky” season (.448 BABIP), but he’s actually gotten those hits. I don’t want an allstar game based on future projections, I want one based on to date performance. Others would disagree, I’m sure, but I want to see the guys who will likely never be this good again (see Bartlett, Jason) rather than the usual suspects. Mr. Cameron would seem to be in this boat as well.
I see it as similar to the year-end awards. MVP and Cy Young awards don’t go to the guys who we project as being most likely to have a huge season again, they go to guys, often lucky for a season, who happened to have great results (got on base, drove in runs, prevented runs).
I agree completely with aweb.
BABIP? We’re not trying to predict future performance here. This is about what actually happened. Youkilis has been better so far, end of discussion.
lucky != better
But a higher batting average, EVEN if it’s simply the product of a higher BABIP, is better.
Also, Youkilis has been significantly better in the field than Teixeira, not just as the plate.
+2.6 fielding runs for Youk vs. -0.4 for Tex. Total value to date:
Teixeira: $8.2M / 1.8 WAR
Youkilis: $11.1M / 2.5 WAR
This one really isnt that close, even if we adjusted for BABIP – which is a tremendously stupid approach in any case. Again, it wouldnt even matter – Adjust whatever you want and go through whatever translations you’d like… Youkilis still comes out as more valuable.
Actually, a higher batting average is irrelevant without correspondingly higher OBP/SLG.
Thanks Kevin. Just to be perfectly clear for everyone, I was implying that a higher BABIP leads to more hits, thus a higher BA, OBP, and SLG.