Your 2010 All-Stars

Let's do this thing Oscars-style:  Which player will likely win according to fan voting, and who actually deserves the starting job.

AL 

Catcher:

Will win: Joe Mauer, 3,280,565 votes.  Man Muscles is currently leading the American League in total All-Star voting, which is pretty incredible since he's having a mediocre season by his standards.  He's batting just .304/.381/.438, with a .356 weighted on-base average.  According to fangraphs, he still leads all AL catchers with 1.9 wins above replacement, but just barely.

Should win:  Well, the Mauer pick is pretty defensible since the field of catchers is actually pretty thin. There isn't anyone else in the American League having a season that is far and away better than Man Muscles.  One could make the case for Victor Martinez and Mike Napoli, but Mauer is a better defensive catcher than either one.

First Base:

Will win:  Justin Morneau is the projected winner by just 244, 507 votes.  I've written elsewhere that Morneau is having one helluva season.  He's come back down to earth a little since then, but he's still getting on base at a .451 (!) clip.  Runner-up Mark Teixeira got off to a slow start, but he seems to be heating up lately, with a .359 wOBA in June.  Still, the Teixeira choice is a bit puzzling considering Kevin Youkilis, Miguel Cabrera, Billy Butler, and Daric Barton are all currently having better seasons than Kurt Tex. 

Who should win:  Morneau.  Absolutely no other American League first baseman is having as great of a season as the Mountie so far.  Miguel Cabrera's .331/.408/.620 line would be plenty good enough for the starting job in most years, just not this one.  Kevin Youkilis would also deserve consideration, again, if it weren't for Morny's monster start. 

Second Base:

Will win:  Robinson Cano, with 2,330,278 votes.  And he should.  Cano is one of the best players in the league right now, batting .361/.413/.589 and worth 4.4 wins above replacement.  Nobody else in the American League even comes close.

Should win:  Cano.  He's making a strong push for the AL MVP as well. 

Shortstop:

Will win:  Derek Jeter, with 2,692,418 votes, second to Mauer in AL voting.  Like Mauer, Jeter is having a disappointing season by his standards, batting .281/.339/.416.  It is a pretty thin crop of shortstops in the AL this year though, so this is also a pretty defensible pick.

Should win:  Jeter.  One could also make the case for Marco Scutaro and Elvis Andrus, but neither have been significantly better than Jeter.  Alex Gonzalez is having a great season in Toronto, but I don't have much faith that his numbers will hold up over the entire season. He's striking out nearly four times as much as he walks, and his .218 isolated power is much higher than his .152 career average.  When in doubt, I like to go with the player who has the greater body of work, and Jeter has been the better player for a much longer period of time.

Third Base:

Will win:  Evan Longoria.  Longo is having another good season, batting .301/.377/.523 though surprisingly, he isn't the best third baseman in the league this year.

Should win:  Adrian Beltre, though it's very close.  I'm actually surprised there isn't more support for Boston's third baseman.  Beltre is currently batting .339/.379/.539 with a .398 wOBA, and it's crazy that he's fourth in voting, behind Longo (.394 wOBA), Alex Rodriguez (.366 wOBA), and Michael Young (.375 wOBA).

DH:

Will win: Vladimir Guerrero.  Vlad seems to have rediscovered his stroke in Texas, batting .328/.370/.538, with a strikeout rate at a career-low 9.4%.

Should win: Vlad the Impaler, no question. 

Outfielders:

Will win:  Ichiro! (1,567,788 votes), Carl Crawford (1,445,615 votes), Josh Hamilton (1,431,013 votes), with Nelson Cruz (1,377,399 votes) and Nick Swisher (1,049,047 votes) right on their heels.

Should win: All are actually defensible choices, though Alex Rios and Magglio Ordonez are both in the midst of major rebound seasons and deserve some consideration as well.

The fans don't get to vote on the pitching staff, but I wanted to include them anyway, just to see who is turning in the best performances of the season so far.  I have no idea who Joe Girardi is considering, but for what it's worth, these guys are the best in the AL right now:

Starters:

Cliff Lee:  2.39 ERA, 19.00 K/BB, 1.98 FIP, 3.10 xFIP

Francisco Liriano:  3.11 ERA, 4.00 K/BB, 2.17 FIP, 3.00 xFIP

Jered Weaver: 3.01 ERA, 4.92 K/BB, 2.94 FIP, 3.22 xFIP Yeah, really.

Ricky Romero:  2.85 ERA, 2.66 K/BB, 3.13 FIP, 3.29 xFIP

Jon Lester:  3.03 ERA, 2.55 K/BB, 3.16 FIP, 3.50 xFIP

Phil Hughes definitely deserves consideration too, and I'm guessing Girardi would likely select him over, say, Ricky Romero.


Relievers:

Matt Thornton: 3.23 ERA, 4.50 K/BB, 1.71 FIP, 2.17 xFIP

Joel Zumaya: 1.98 ERA, 3.67 K/BB, 2.07 FIP, 3.91 xFIP

J. J. Putz: 2.03 ERA, 8.25 K/BB, 2.09 FIP, 2.29 xFIP

Joba Chamberlain:  5.17 ERA, 3.36 K/BB, 2.25 FIP, 3.14 xFIP  Joba's ugly ERA is mostly due to his extremely fluky .384 batting average on balls in play.  His strikeout rate and walk rate are very good, and he isn't giving up any more home runs than usual, so his ERA should drop as the season progresses.

Darren Oliver: 1.27 ERA, 5.71 K/BB, 2.29 FIP, 2.48 xFIP

I don't think this is at all what the All-Star game pitching staff is going to look like.  Girardi will most likely select more veteran starters, such as C. C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander (or hopefully King Felix), and I don't think five relievers are going to make the roster.  I also don't see any way Mariano Rivera doesn't make the team, though it will be a terrible injustice if Thornton is snubbed.

And the Senior Circuit:

Catcher:

Will win:  Yadier Molina, though not by much.  I don't understand this one at all.  Yadi is batting just .240/.319/.321 and is dead last in qualified starters in wins above replacement.

Should win:  Brian McCann, though Russell Martin and Ryan Doumit would also be better choices. I hate to say this, but McCann is having a better season than Joe Mauer, at least behind the plate.  He's batting .261/.378/.444, with a .184 ISO nearly 50 points above Mauer's .133 mark, and more than a hundred points above Yadi's .081 mark.

First Base:

Will win: Albert Pujols, by a pretty comfortable margin.  Pujols is having a very Pujolsian season, batting .307/.424/.538 and just generally terrorizing the National League.

Should win:  Pujols is a good choice, but Adrian Gonzalez (.404 wOBA) and Joey Votto (.413 wOBA) certainly deserve some consideration as well.  Votto is currently fifth in voting, while Gonzales isn't even on the map, so apparently nobody cares about the Padres and the Reds.  That's a shame.  The fans don't get to choose the NL DH though, so either one might still get a shot at a starting job.

Second Base: 

Will win: Chase Utley, with 2,409,027 votes.  Utley is batting .273/.382/.470, so he's actually kind of having a down season.

Should win: Utley, though Brandon Phillips, Dan Uggla, and Martin Prado are all having nice seasons as well.

Shortstop:

Will win: Hanley Ramirez. Wait, what?  It's not Jimmy Rollins?  Holy crap, I can't believe the voters might actually get this one right.

Should win:   Ramirez, though it's a virtual dead-heat with Troy Tulowitzki.  Unfortunately, Tulo is third in voting behind Rollins, so the voters are only partly right.  It's progress, I guess.

Third Base: 

Will win: Placido Polanco has a slight lead over David Wright, so who knows?

Should win: Scott Rolen, though David Wright is a pretty defensible choice as well.  Rolen is having a fantastic season with the Reds, batting .303/.366/.581, though given his age and injury history it's unlikely he's going to keep it up all year.  Polanco, for his part, is about the fourth-most valuable third-baseman in the league.

The Outfield:

Will win:  Ryan Braun (1,816,052 votes), Jason Heyward (1,786,786 votes), and Andre Ethier (1,723,266 votes).

Should win:  None of these are terrible picks, though Corey Hart, Colby Rasmus, and Marlon Byrd might deserve more consideration than Braun. 

Pitchers:

Again, I have no idea what Charlie Manuel is going to do, and I will be very surprised if the roster looks anything like this, but these guys have been lights out so far:

Starters:

Roy Halladay:  2.29 ERA, 6.00 K/BB, 2.57 FIP, 3.07 xFIP

Josh Johnson: 1.80 ERA, 3.77 K/BB, 2.57 FIP, 3.21 xFIP

Tim Lincecum: 2.86 ERA, 2.90 K/BB, 2.74 FIP, 3.15 xFIP

Ubaldo Jimenez:  1.60 ERA, 2.64 K/BB, 2.97 FIP, 3.64 xFIP

Yovani Gallardo:  2.36 ERA, 2.61 K/BB, 2.88 FIP, 3.43 xFIP

Relievers:

Jonathan Broxton:  0.86 ERA, 11.50 K/BB, 0.69 FIP, 1.73 xFIP

Luke Gregerson: 1.66 ERA, 12.00 K/BB, 1.70 FIP, 2.16 xFIP

Brian Wilson:  2.25 ERA, 3.67 K/BB, 2.02 FIP, 2.85 xFIP

Heath Bell:  1.99 ERA, 3.15 K/BB, 2.20 FIP, 3.03 xFIP

Billy Wagner:   1.19 ERA, 3.83 K/BB, 2.25 FIP, 2.70 xFIP

Carlos Marmol will probably make the team, given his league-leading 16.64 K/9 rate, as will Francisco Rodriguez, given that managers are just unimaginitive.

An Exercise in Futility: The Timberwolves and the Draft

I am a Timberwolves fan, so naturally I hate, hate, hate, HATE the NBA's draft lottery system.  This isn't really what this post is going to be about, but I can't really write a post about the Wolfies and the draft without bringing up the lottery.  I mean, their horrible luck in the lottery is bordering on hilarious. The highest they have ever picked is third (and they took Christian Laettner and O. J. Mayo, which leads me to what this post is really about), even though they have twice finished the season with the second-worst record in the NBA, and once with the worst record.  In any other sport, whether it be the NHL, NFL, or MLB, fans of crappy teams can at least look forward to the draft. Knowing that the front office will get the top pick, and the first crack at a potential superstar, makes sitting through a lost season that much more bearable.  It doesn't work that way in the NBA, where a team can theoretically go winless and still end up with the third overall pick (I realize the league does this to discourage teams from intentionally tanking the season, but still, it would be nice to be rewarded for our loyalty to a craptastic team).  This year, the Wolfies finished with the second-worst record (though they were, for all intents and purposes, the worst team in the NBA), and wound up with the fourth overall pick.  Now, this draft is fairly deep and the Wolfies should still end up with a very good player (whether it is DeMarcus Cousins or Wesley Johnson, or whether they will trade up for Evan Turner remains to be seen, but I'll get to that in a minute), but it would definitely help the rebuilding process if they could draft a superstar.  That isn't likely to happen with the fourth overall pick.

The Wolves' history of futility in the draft goes way beyond just the lottery, though.  They have pretty much squandered every pick they've ever had before Kevin McHale was mercifully relieved of his duties, though the jury is still out on David Kahn and the 2009 draft (it does look somewhat promising, especially once Ricky Rubio comes over from Spain, though they probably should have taken Stephen Curry over Jonny Flynn).  I was going to do a detailed history of the Wolves' drafts like the one I started for the Twins, but it's just too depressing (you can see the horror for yourself here).  It's not that there haven't been any bright spots, they did take Kevin Garnett with the fifth overall pick in 1995, but even on the rare occasions that the front office actually made the right choice, McFail usually traded him for peanuts within a couple of hours.  In 2006, the Wolves selected Brandon Roy with the sixth overall pick in the first round, then immediately dealt him to Portland for the rights to draft Randy Foye.  In 2008, the Wolfies took O. J. Mayo in the first round with the third overall pick, then dealt him right away to the Grizzlies for Kevin Love.  Now, I am a huge fan of Love and I think he has a ton of upside, but the Wolfies could really use a shooting guard of Mayo's caliber right now.  Of course, all of this pales in comparison to the time McFail dealt Ray Allen to the Bucks for the rights to Stephon Marbury.  Now, in his defense, Marbury was considered one of the best players in the 1996 draft, and it isn't really his fault that Starbury decided he didn't want to be in the shadow Kevin Garnett, that he wanted to be the whole show (although maybe we can blame him for mishandling the situation to the point where Marbury forced a trade; yes, let's do that).

This year's draft, well, I don't think anyone knows what Kahn and co. are really going to do.  First, Kahn says he's going to try to trade up for Evan Turner, then he says he's interested in Wesley Johnson.  DeMarcus Cousins is projected to go fourth, but apparently Kahn isn't interested in him because he's a lot like Al Jefferson.  But then again, maybe he is.  And then there's Derrick Favors, Xavier Henry, and Jordan Crawford.  Oh, I don't know, I get the feeling it's either going to be Johnson or Favors (probably Johnson, the front office seems to like him a lot).  I doubt the Wolves would actually trade up for Turner (though it would make me very happy), and unless they're planning on trading Big Al, they wouldn't have much use for Cousins. I also doubt the Wolves would take either Henry or Crawford at fourth; I'd like to give the front office a little credit. And Derrick Favors is apparently out of shape, which leaves us with Johnson.  He is probably the best small forward in the draft, so maybe this might work out OK after all.  I guess. *sigh*

The Perfect Game That Wasn't

I was going to write a lengthy post about what happened last night, and whether the use of instant replay should be expanded in MLB, but after working on it for a few hours, just couldn't quite figure out exactly what I wanted to say.  Well, other than I am very, very sorry, Tigers fans.  Watching one of your pitchers lose a perfect game in the ninth really sucks; doing so at the hands of an umpire must be about a billion times more painful.  Anyway, it's a good thing the internet is full of people smarter than I:

Bill at The Daily Something articulates a very good argument for both reversing the blown call (which is apparently a moot point now), and for expanding instant replay.  On the first point, well, I really hate to agree with Seligula, but I'm not really comfortable with the idea of overturning a call once the game is in the books.  I don't have a good reason; I just think what's done is done and, even though the result may be one of the great injustices in the history of the game, it's time to move on.  Besides, I think we'll all just think of this as the 28-out perfect game from now on.  Galarraga certainly does.  I am totally on board with the expanded use of instant replay (and robot umpires!), though.

Joe Posnanski says what I wanted to say about the way Galarraga handled the situation with such grace, only about a thousand times better than I could have.   Kudos to him and Joyce, who accepted responsibility for his error and seemed genuinely broken up about it (and genuinely touched by Galarraga's goodwill gesture).  I have less of a problem with umpires who simply made a mistake on a call (Yes, even Phil Cuzzi. Hey, it's not like I never screw up at work), than those who purposely antagonize managers and players.

Lost in the hoopla over the not-quite-perfect game is that the Twins got royally hosed by a bad call on the base paths last night, too.  Unlike the game in Detroit, this one did have a direct impact on the outcome of the game, as well as the standings. Gardy had some choice words for the umpiring crew in his postgame press conference, but that's only because the call went against his team.

Oh, yeah, Griffey announced his retirement last night, too.  Poor Kid has spent his entire career in someone else's shadow, even in retirement.