The All-Star Starters By WAR
With last night’s announcement of the starters for the 2019 All-Star Game, baseball’s experiment with a new fan voting process officially came to its completion.
Ten of the 17 All-Star starters currently lead their respective league in WAR at their position, with two more — Gary Sanchez and Nolan Arenado — sitting in virtual ties.
Here’s the full breakdown, first for the American League:
| Position | Player | WAR | WAR Leader? | Actual Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Gary Sanchez | 2.1 | No | James McCann (2.1) |
| 1B | Carlos Santana | 2.6 | Yes | — |
| 2B | DJ LeMahieu | 3.2 | Yes | — |
| 3B | Alex Bregman | 3.5 | Yes | — |
| SS | Jorge Polanco | 2.8 | No | Xander Bogaerts (3.7) |
| OF | Mike Trout | 5.3 | Yes | — |
| OF | George Springer | 2.9 | Yes | — |
| OF | Michael Brantley | 2.2 | No | Joey Gallo (3.6) |
| DH | Hunter Pence | 1.7 | No | Austin Meadows (2.1) |
**James McCann leads Gary Sanchez in WAR by 0.08 wins.
And now for the National League:
| Position | Player | WAR | WAR Leader? | Actual Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Willson Contreras | 2.6 | No | Yasmani Grandal (3.0) |
| 1B | Freddie Freeman | 2.9 | No | Pete Alonso (3.2) |
| 2B | Ketel Marte | 3.9 | Yes | — |
| 3B | Nolan Arenado | 3.1 | No | Anthony Rendon (3.1) |
| SS | Javier Baez | 2.9 | Yes | — |
| OF | Christian Yelich | 4.5 | Yes | — |
| OF | Cody Bellinger | 5.7 | Yes | — |
| OF | Ronald Acuña Jr. | 3.1 | Yes | — |
**Anthony Rendon leads Nolan Arenado in WAR by 0.03 wins.
Even among the players who are not leading their position in WAR, there aren’t many significant snubs. Xander Bogaerts is the biggest miss. He didn’t even garner enough support to be named as one of the three finalists. (Neither did Anthony Rendon, for that matter.) But don’t fret. Both Bogaerts and Rendon will more than likely be among the names listed when the All-Star reserves are announced Sunday evening.
In total, 59% of the starters will be represented by their current WAR leader. At least from this observer’s point of view, the fans did pretty well.
For good measure, let’s compare this to the fans’ selections in 2018. First, here are the 2018 American League starters:
| Position | Player | WAR | WAR Leader? | Actual Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Wilson Ramos | 1.1 | No | Max Stassi (2.4) |
| 1B | José Abreu | 0.3 | No | Matt Olson (1.8) |
| 2B | José Altuve | 4.0 | Yes | — |
| 3B | José Ramirez | 5.2 | Yes | — |
| SS | Manny Machado | 3.2 | No | Francisco Lindor (5.3) |
| OF | Mookie Betts | 5.8 | Yes | — |
| OF | Mike Trout | 6.3 | Yes | — |
| OF | Aaron Judge | 4.4 | Yes | — |
| DH | J.D. Martinez | 3.4 | Yes | — |
**Stats from Opening Day through July 7, 2018.
And here are the 2018 National League starters:
| Position | Player | WAR | WAR Leader? | Actual Leader |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| C | Willson Contreras | 1.6 | No | J.T. Realmuto (3.3) |
| 1B | Freddie Freeman | 3.5 | Yes | — |
| 2B | Javier Baez | 3.1 | No | Ozzie Albies (3.2) |
| 3B | Nolan Arenado | 3.6 | Yes | — |
| SS | Brandon Crawford | 2.4 | No | Trea Turner (2.9) |
| OF | Nick Markakis | 2.4 | Yes | — |
| OF | Matt Kemp | 1.8 | No | Lorenzo Cain (3.1) |
| OF | Bryce Harper | 1.2 | No | Kyle Schwarber (2.4) |
**Stats from Opening Day through July 7, 2018.
For those keeping track, the fans selected nine WAR leaders, again out of the 17 total spots. So while the fans did indeed pick one more WAR leader to start the All-Star Game this year as opposed to last year, the results aren’t especially different. One year’s result does not necessarily mean that this year’s process was any better or worse than last year’s. Perhaps this is a topic for another day, but we could even get into a further discussion of what “better” means. I know I would rather have Gary Sanchez starting for the AL squad than James McCann, so should we fault the fans for not picking the WAR leader in that specific case? Of course not. After all, “star” is right there in the name.
Devan Fink is a Contributor at FanGraphs. You can follow him on Twitter @DevanFink.
Seems to be a lot fewer “misses” compared to last year. This year, Bogaerts and Gallo are the only guys leading by > 0.5 WAR that missed, whereas last year there were 6 players elected more than half a win worse than the leader. Obviously the half win is a totally arbitrary cutoff, but the whole thing is pretty arbitrary anyways.
I don’t think any of those starters are undeserving. And the only egregious snub was Gallo, who has been hitting the ball so dang hard. The Polanco one, perhaps, but keep in mind that Polanco was scorching hot up until June or so, and so I understand why voters might not have realized that he wasn’t the same guy anymore.
Fans are largely voting for the WAR leaders or at least near WAR leaders. Michael Wilbon must be inconsolable.
Man, I just don’t get Wilbon. Dude is so anti-stats it’s absolutely insane. He also thinks Toews is better than Crosby sooo =/
If that’s the case then his opinion is entirely worthless and I will continue not caring about it.
If you live in a show where your entire job is to argue with someone the whole time, you’ll end up with views that just keep getting pushed farther and farther to the extreme.
Wilbon doesn’t know a thing about baseball. Like, a thing.
I like the new two round system because it means you have to appeal to lots of different fanbases to win, not just the fans of the team you play for. You can make it out of the first round based just on your home fans, but it’s almost impossible to win that way. Good way to elimiante what happened in 2015, when the Royals almost had 8 starters.
BTW, to illustrate my point…ESPN put together a voting guide for the second round. In it, they claimed that Santana had no chance if Yankee fans stuffed the ballot for Voit.
But that clearly wasn’t true. The Yankees may have more fans than any other team but they don’t have more fans than every other team combined.
So Voit edged out Santana in the first round, when there were 15 names on the ballot and lots of people vote for the player from their favorite team. But Santana easily won round two, when there were only 3 candidates, and voters focused more on who the best player was.
The All-star game is one of those things I just can’t care about anymore, even though I wish I could. Maybe it’s just something that appeals to young people-the joy of seeing Ozzie Smith playing on the infield with Ryne Sandberg and Tony Gwynn with Andre Dawson in the outfield.
When I was a kid, it seemed like magic, but these days, it feels like an annoying interruption in the middle of the season when I just want to watch my team. It’s tough growing up into a cynic.
Marcus Semien is currently one of the Top 10-ish position players in all of baseball according to both fWAR (14th) and bWAR (9th). In the final Voting Primary update (released June 17), he wasn’t in the Top 10… AL shortstops.
Good job, casual baseball fans. Good work. You dopes.
This is what happens when you can only vote on the top SS. He clearly wasn’t the best, and the voting reflected that. It reflected absolutely nothing about whether he’s top-2, 3, 5, or anything else. Good job, casual baseball fans.
I mean, if you’re going to complain about someone from the A’s getting the short-shrift, you play was clearly Matt Chapman, who’s one of the top 5 players in the AL, but didn’t make the second round ballot.
“Is Yasmani Grandal really great or not?” is an article I’d love to read
He’s great.
or not
WAR, what is it good for…….I think you know the rest.
Comparing players against a baseline to quantify their contributions or lack thereof?
Say it again
..good god, y’all.
I can understand Bregman selection but I would equally be happy with Matt Chapman who is personally more fun to watch.
The home run binge he has been on this week with opposite field singers was a statement add the unrivalled defence where he has no equal and he is very fun to watch, Dee Gordon will approve.
Personal preferences are what they are (I want me some Muncy), but Bregman’s a pretty great public face for baseball.
But really, we should change the system so the Muncys and Chapmans of baseball can play instead of Will Smith (excellent reliever though he may be)
What kind of error bars does WAR have?
For outcomes? Not very big at all.
To measure how well someone has played? Moderately sized. A stupid third base coach alone can considerably ding a player’s war, for example.
I just can’t care about anymore, even though I wish I could. Maybe it’s just something that appeals to young people-the joy of seeing Ozzie Smith playing on the infield with Ryne Sandberg and Tony Gwynn with Andre Dawson in the outfield. https://www.9apps.red/