Here's the roster for your viewing pleasure. Not a whole lot of surprises on that list. Thirteen first timers on the Senior Circuit roster, so that's exciting. Two of which, Brad Hawpe and Jason Marquis, are on the surprising Colorado Rockies.
The Astros are represented by Hunter Pence and Miguel Tejada. Pence hasn't been himself of late but I can't really argue with his selection. The Hit Machine (hat tip to AstroAndy) himself, Miguel Tejada, is a big name and doesn't have a whole lot of compeititon at shortstop.
If the NL Central were decided by players selected to the All Star game, it would still be ridiculously close:
| Team | # of All-Stars | Players |
| STL | 3 | Y. Molina, A. Pujols, R. Franklin |
| MIL | 2 | R. Braun, P. Fielder |
| HOU | 2 | M. Tejada, H. Pence |
| CIN | 1 | F. Cordero |
| CHI | 1 | T. Lilly |
| PIT | 1 | F. Sanchez |
Overall, the divisions are split as evenly as possible: eleven players from both the NL East and West, and ten from the Central. Of the NL West players selected to the Mid Summer Classic, all eleven are reserve players. Although I would expect that the starter of the All Star Game will be either Tim Lincecum (SF) or Dan Haren (AZ).
One player who comes to mind as a snub is ATL pitcher, Javier Vasquez. He is second in the NL in FIP, K/9 and K/BB. A 5-7 personal record and playing on an average Atlanta team most likely doomed his cause.
Who else was snubbed this season?
Can you make a similar claim that Lance Berkman has All Star worthy peripherals statistics, but becuase of his slow start and low BA he didn't stand a chance?
0 recs | 11 comments
Cubs go from 8 players last year
to 1 who is there due to the requirement to have a rep from every team.
ol Pete - July 7, 2009
Hey, Tejada should be "Mr. Doubles.."
not “Mr. Single..” Tejada leads the NL in doubles with 28. He is on pace for 56 doubles, which would tie Biggio for the team record, if it occurred.
clack - July 7, 2009
He’s also the league leader in multi-hit games (2nd place in all of baseball behind Ichiro) and 3+ hit games.
At some point, should we just be calling him the Hit Machine? Or does his tied for 3rd in the league in GIDP disqualify him from that?
AstroAndy - July 7, 2009
touche
when i heard he was leading the league in doubles, i immediately regretted writing that line. my bad, folks.
Evan Hochschild - July 7, 2009
Brian McCann got screwed, I think (Molina is a poor selection, btw).
Ryan Howard is probably less deserving than either Berkman or Votto.
Second base is in a weird situation for the NL, because I don’t think normally Orlando Hudson would be deserving of a spot. But the other typically all-star quality second basemen are having down years (Uggla, Phillips). Rickie Weeks’ numbers six weeks into the season would suggest that he’d be that third 2B, but his season ended on that muscle thing. Otherwise, maybe Clint Barmes, but that depends so heavily on whether or not you think he’s just having a “flukey” season.
There are a bunch of pitchers who got snubbed, and that’s mainly because guys like Marquis and Lilly made it.
I think it’s great that a lot of new guys made it, but I think a better job could have been done in selecting some of those new faces.
Only_A_Lad - July 7, 2009
wait
scratch that part about McCann.
Only_A_Lad - July 7, 2009
Umpire needs to be made an example of
“He didn’t tag me,” Jeter told Foster.
“He didn’t have to,” Foster said, according to Jeter. “The ball beat you.”
-——-He needs to be canned immediately.
Xan - July 7, 2009
I agree that the umpires look really bad in that situation.
The crew chief kept the press from talking to Foster, and the crew chief’s response was so incoherent / bizarre ( basically saying, “we could use that excuse in the past, but we can’t anymore, and so if Jeter is right the umpire should have handled that better, but I’ll ask him over lunch tomorrow.”) that it reminded me of the umpire crew chief’s ridiculous explanation in the 2005 White Sox ALCS game (you remember the “the umpire was correct based upon his individual hand mechanics.”)
However, on the other hand, we see umpires make similarly terrible rulings in the games we watch, but it doesn’t get any media attention. When the Yankees are involved, and Jeter in particular is involved, the issue raises to the level of a national outrage. I agree Jeter had every right to be angry, and the umpire needs to be disciplined. But, really, if the umpire had told Lance Berkman the same thing, do you think we would see the national media attention?
clack - July 7, 2009
Agree and disagree
A missed call is one thing. Applying a nonexistent rule is quite another.
You’re absolutely right about the media attention. If this had happened in the Astros / Padres series, nobody would be talking about it at all.
But ignoring bad umpiring won’t fix that situation, and since the media attention is what it is, we may as well use it to fix the umpires.
Xan - July 8, 2009
Ryan Howard is probably less deserving than either Berkman or Votto.
STUPID COMMENT ALERT! The only thing either Berkman or Votto have over Howard is BA. That is it.
fob22 - July 8, 2009
wow, you really did make a stupid comment.
Thanks for the heads-up.
Only_A_Lad - July 8, 2009
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