On Sunday, the rosters (minus the 34th guy, who is voted in by the fans after the announcement) for the 83rd All-Star game will be announced, and you can be sure that next Monday will be full or discussion over who should and shouldn’t have been included. We’re just going to move up the discussion a few days, though, and so this afternoon I’m presenting the rosters I would select if I have complete and total authority and I was so shallow that I used that authority to select rosters for the All-Star Game. This is a weird hypothetical, but let’s go with it for now.

One quick note – I’m a guy who believes that the All-Star Game is more of a reward for the players than a spectacle for the fans, though it is obviously both at the same time. As such, I place more importance on first half performance than some others who feel that the game should always just be filled with the best players of their time, regardless of how they did in the first three months of the season. If a guy has three fluke months, I’m not keeping him out just because I don’t think he can keep it up. First half totals aren’t the only factor, but for me, they’re the biggest one.

Oh, and we’re playing by the rules, so every team gets a representative, deserving or not, and injured players were not considered since they’re, you know, injured. On to the rosters, with the starter listed first.

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A month ago, I wrote a piece highlighting the contrast between Josh Hamilton’s results (amazing!) and Josh Hamilton’s approach at the plate (awful!). At that time, Hamilton was succeeding with a plan of attack that could essentially be described as swing-at-absolutely-everything. I finished the piece by saying that I wasn’t sure pitchers should throw Hamilton a strike ever again.

Well, after two months of getting abused, pitchers have adjusted to Hamilton. They’re still throwing him strikes on occasion, but nearly every pitcher is attacking Hamilton the same way now: away, away, away.

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Major League Baseball announced today that Marlon Byrd has been suspended for 50 games as a result of a positive test for Tamoxifen. In reality, this probably ends Byrd’s career in the Majors, as he’s already been released twice this season and he turns 35 in August.

It’s worth noting that Byrd is in the midst of the worst year of his career and has been one of the least effective players in baseball this year. In 153 trips to the plate, he hit .210/.243/.245 with three extra base hits, good for -1.0 WAR in about a quarter of a season’s worth of playing time. Obviously, we can’t know when or what Byrd has taken in the past, and it’s possible that he was also using PEDs when he performed better in prior seasons, but hopefully people will notice that a guy can be using performance enhancing drugs and still be absolutely awful. They are not a miracle cure that can make up for a lack of talent.

Odds are good that we haven’t heard the last of this story, either. Byrd was the only player still publicly affiliated with Victor Conte, who ran the BALCO clinic that was investigated and eventually shut down for providing steroids to several prominent athletes, most notably Barry Bonds. In spring training, Byrd was quoted as saying:

“I’m always going to watch what I take. I’m not going to say I have a bull’s-eye on my back, but I think a lot of people are waiting for me to get my first positive test and miss 50 games. They’d like that just so they can say, ‘We told you so.’ I know that won’t happen. I know I’m clean. I know the supplements I take are clean. I’m going to make sure of that.”

Those don’t sound like words that come from a guy who is just going to take his suspension and go quietly into the night. If you like public spatting about drug testing, grab some popcorn, because I’d imagine you’re probably in for a show.

Jason Heyward hit the big leagues in 2010 as a 20-year-old prodigy, but also with a skillset that is more commonly found among players in their mid-thirties. Heyward drew 92 walks in his rookie year — the most by any player in their age 20 season since Ted Williams drew 107 back in 1939 — and succeeded at the plate with an extremely patient approach, something you just don’t generally find at that age. Because of his selective approach, Heyward was an instant star even with just average contact rates and slightly above average power.

However, Heyward’s success didn’t carry over to 2011, as he struggled with injuries and his BABIP fell 75 points, cutting the legs out from under his batting average. While he was still drawing walks, the moderate power wasn’t offsetting the outs he was making, and his sophomore season was a pretty big step backwards for the Braves right fielder. Instead of comparisons to The Splendid Splinter, Heyward was starting to draw whispers of guys like Ben Grieve.

The first two months of 2012 brought more of the same, as he ended May hitting .233/.327/.413. He was still drawing walks, but he was making contact at the lowest rate of his career and still not hitting for a lot of power. After his early career brilliance, Heyward had racked up 600 mediocre plate appearances, and the questions about his ability to produce at a high level were only growing louder.

Then came June. For the last 24 days, Heyward has been a monster at the plate, and a totally different kind of monster than he’s ever been before. In 72 trips to the plate, he has 14 extra base hits and has only drawn three walks, leading to an un-Heyward-like .391/.417/.754 batting line for the month. That’s something you’d expect from Josh Hamilton or an on-fire Adam Jones, not the most selective young hitter we’ve seen come along in a couple of generations.

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Yesterday, we talked about the four man rotation experiment that the Rockies are trying out, and while I expressed some skepticism that it is going to work in their specific situation, I do applaud the effort to try something new. What we know about the relative of performance of starters and relievers suggests that teams could theoretically get better run prevention by getting more innings to their relievers — or at least pitchers working in a role that looks something like a reliever.

So, is there a way to create a pitching staff where this effect is taken advantage of more thoroughly? In looking at the requirements that a pitching staff faces over the course of a season, I think there just might be.

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Bruce Chen pitched pretty well for the Royals today, holding the Astros to just one run through 5.2 innings. But what happened after Ned Yost lifted Chen was the real noteworthy story from this game. Here is every plate appearance between a Royals middle reliever and an Astros hitter this afternoon.

Bottom 6:

Kelvin Herrera strikes out Chris Snyder.

Bottom 7:

Kelvin Herrera strikes out Brian Bogusevic.
Kelvin Herrera strikes out Jose Altuve.
Kelvin Herrera strikes out Brian Bixler.

Botton 8:

Jose Mijares strikes out Jordan Schafer.
Greg Holland allows a single to Carlos Lee.
Greg Holland walks J.D. Martinez.
Greg Holland strikes out Jed Lowrie.
Greg Holland strikes out Chris Johnson.

Nine batters faced, seven strikeouts. Jonathan Broxton pitched around a couple of base hits in the ninth inning to earn the only save given out in the Royals 2-1 victory, but the real stars of this performance were Kansas City’s three middle relievers.

The Rockies rotation has been a disaster this year. As a group, they have a 6.31 ERA, and while their FIP (5.15) and xFIP (4.44) are somewhat better, both marks are still among the worst in the league. The main culprits — the rockies are 29th in walk rate (3.71 BB/9), 29th in home run rate (1.58 HR/9), and 30th in BABIP allowed (.349). Putting guys on base before you give up hits and homers is a sure way to allow the other team to score, and while the park and defense are significant non-pitching factors, their starters xFIP- is 114, worst in baseball, and that’s all on the pitchers.

So, Jim Tracy is going to try something different. Very different. In lieu of just changing the names on the back of the jerseys, Tracy is essentially throwing away the standard construction of a starting rotation, and is going to use his pitching staff in an extremely unconventional manner — four “starting pitchers”, each one limited to 75 pitches per outing.

To be honest, I love the idea of trying something different, but I’m just not sure this roster and this location is the right place to try it.

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