Breaking Down the All-Stars

If last night’s Home Run Derby was any indication of the interest and excitement that will be on display tonight, there should be a lot of electricity in Cincinnati for the All-Star Game. The disparity of talent between the American League and National League has been an ongoing debate for some tonight, and the result of a single-game exhibition is not going to tell us a lot about the superiority of any league. Looking at the entire talent level of a league is a much better indicator of the league’s as a whole, but tonight we have a snippet of that talent, and for the most part, we have a large portion of the talent at the top.

The All-Star Game never has all of the best players in each league matched up face-to-face. Layers of fan voting, peer selections along with injuries and pitchers starting on Sunday tend to thin the rosters a little. That being said, most of the best players in Major League Baseball are represented on the roster and taking a look at their performance this season, their preseason projections, as well as rest of the season projections can provide a decent indicator of the talent level at the top of the respective leagues.

Starting with first half performances, we have every position player selected for the game represented below, regardless of whether they will actually be playing. American League players are represented in red while National League players are represented in blue.

The leagues are very evenly matched. With one extra player, the American League has a slim lead in wins this far, 69.3 to 67.3 through the All-Star Break. For players actually in the game, the lead gets slimmer, with AL leading 60.1 to 59.5, a difference of less than one win despite the extra player.

On the pitching side, the National League holds the overall edge.

Before removing players who started Sunday, the NL holds a five-win lead over the AL, 32.9 to 27.7. Removing Max Scherzer and Sonny Gray shortens the gap to 28.2 against 24.3, but the National League benefited much more from the removals. The dropoff between Sonny Gray and his replacement, Hector Santiago, is much bigger than the drop from Max Scherzer to Clayton Kershaw.

How we view these teams now is somewhat different from our view before the season. At the beginning of the season, the preseason projections from the FanGraphs Depth Charts for the position players selected to the All-Star Game looked like this:

As we would expect, many of the players in tonight’s game were expected to perform very well with Mike Trout leading the way. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a few of the surprise entrants. Dee Gordon was having a very surprising season before his injury, Joe Panik has nearly matched the production of fellow Giant Brandon Crawford while nobody expected D.J. Lamehieu to end up starting the All-Star Game. Brock Holt was not even expected to garner this much playing time before the season started. Projection-wise, the NL team has the advantage with around 81 wins compared to 77 for the AL. Only counting those active gives the NL a big advantage with 71 wins compared to 52 for the AL.

The projections also give the advantage to NL pitchers.

Clayton Kershaw provides the edge for the NL as their pitchers were projected for 38 wins compared to 29 in the junior circuit. Losing Scherzer hurts, but even without him, the NL still leads 33 to 27 in terms of projected wins.

In terms of talent ready and available for both squads, the rest of the season projections, which take into account predicted playing time might provide the best comparison between the teams. These numbers tend to be more bunched together given the way projection systems operate. That only serves to make the first player on the list just as impressive as everyone already thinks he is.

Finding 22-year-old Manny Machado second on this list might be a surprise considering those who come right after him, but Machado has hit incredibly well so far this season. Adding superlative defense at third base makes him one of the most valuable players in baseball. The projections are still not kind for Lemahieu and Holt, and they are more likely headed for trivia-related All-Star than as well-known, great players. The totals are nearly identical at 39 to 38 in favor of the National League.

On the pitching side, the National League looks to have an edge in talent.

The talent level in the All-Star Game is not necessarily reflective of the talent in the leagues on the whole, but as far as the rosters go tonight, the National League looks to have a slight edge. Players like Kris Bryant and Joc Pederson have helped bridge the gap on the hitting side while the NL pitchers going to the game in Cincinnati are bit better than their Al counterparts, at least for this season.