Much of the time, the pitcher who starts the All-Star Game is very deserving, and is very obvious. It may not be the most-deserving pitcher mind you, but the selection is generally someone good enough that the selection is not worth arguing. This year is such a year: Both Max Scherzer and Matt Harvey rank second in their respective league in WAR, and are close enough to the front runners (Felix Hernandez and Adam Wainwright) as to make the differences negligible. But that hasn’t always been the case. Let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at some of the starting pitchers who weren’t quite as deserving.

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Peter Gammons, as he so often does, teased an interesting tidbit yesterday morning, this one concerning Philliers closer Jonathan Papelbon. To wit:

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Michael Cuddyer just finished going streaking. His 27-game streak, which lasted from May 28th to June 30th, was the longest since Dan Uggla’s 33-gamer in 2011. While he didn’t reach the 30-game benchmark that many sites use, 27 games is nothing to shake a stick at — Cuddyer’s streak was just the 135th of 25 or more games since 1916 that happened during the same season (there were also 18 that spanned two seasons, but I don’t count those. If you have a problem with that you can go suck a lemon). I didn’t have the time to go through all of those streaks, but I did have a chance to take a look at the streaks of 30 or more games, and I thought we could put Cuddyer’s streak into perspective.

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Entering play yesterday, there were four catchers among the top 30 position players in WAR. Three of them should come as no surprise: Buster Posey, Joe Mauer and Yadier Molina. The fourth might be a bit of a surprise, though. Well, at least it might be if you hadn’t read the title of this article. Which, I’m guessing you did. That’s right, it’s Russell Martin.

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The Cubs didn’t have hearty expectations entering the year, but coming on the heels of some nice acquisitions, it wasn’t inconceivable that they would hang around and make some noise in the pennant race. And in a just world, perhaps they would have. They have played better than their record all season, and in fact still carry just a -12 run differential into this weekend’s action. But contention seems far off at this point. The Pirates and Cardinals are tearing it up, and the Reds are drafting off them as they wait to make their move as well. With only one game separating them and the Brewers in last place, you can bet on the Cubs being sellers at the deadline. One of their chief assets will be Matt Garza, who has been fairly fantastic in his last three starts.

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Zoilo is — to put it lightly — not a popular name. So when Zoilo Almonte madness happened over the weekend, it was only natural to think of the other Zoilo in major league history: Zoilo Versalles. One of just 13 shortstops to be voted the most valuable player by the Baseball Writers Association of America, Versalles didn’t have a very long career. But in 1965, he commanded the nation’s attention.

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Heading into last season, Devin Mesoraco was a consensus top-15 prospect, and it was thought that he would see significant time behind the dish with the Reds. After all, they had traded their other top catching prospect — Yasmani Grandal — away in the Mat Latos trade in order to supposedly clear the way for him. But instead, Mesoraco spent most of the season sitting on the bench, and things haven’t been much different this year. In doing so, Cincinnati and manager Dusty Baker may have squandered one of the rarest assets in baseball.

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