With All-Star rosters set to be announced this weekend, I’m hoping that fans made good decisions in for whom to cast their final ballots.  While voting began not long after spring training ended, the true All-Stars have revealed themselves over the entire first half of the season.

The race that I care most about is the one for American League first basemen, where the Royals’ Billy Butler deserves serious consideration but has tough competition.  There are three first basemen who have clearly earned a spot on the AL squad: Justin Morneau, Miguel Cabrera, and Kevin Youkilis.  Mark Teixeira (.232/.345/.408), however, belongs at home.  Butler (.322 batting average, .377 On-Base Percentage, 42 Runs Batted In) should be left off the roster only if Joe Girardi chooses to carry only three first basemen AND Kansas City is represented by outfielder David Dejesus (.331 average, .398 OBP, 35 RBIs).

Continue reading "Who's on first at the Midsummer Classic?"

Thank goodness Joey Votto (.314/.422/.589 with 22 home runs) was elected to the National League All-Star team via the Final Vote.  Billy Wagner, Carlos Gonzalez, and Ryan Zimmerman are great players and were all worthy of roster spots, but Votto should have been the NL’s starting first baseman over Albert Pujols, and it would have been a travesty had he not made it in the end.  Votto leads the NL in both On-Base Percentage and Slugging Percentage and is tied for the lead in home runs; if the season ended today, he’d likely be voted the league’s Most Valuable Player.  It’s too bad, then, that Votto went 0-2 and did not make an impact in the game.  (Each of the other first basemen on the National League side – Pujols, Ryan Howard, and Adrian Gonzalez – went 0-2 as well.)

Continue reading "All-Star Game thoughts"

With the Dog Days of August about to begin, now is the time for teams to decide whether they are buyers or sellers – that is, whether they should mortgage their future and go for it this year or trade away their veterans for up-and-coming prospects.  “Going for it” says to a team’s fans that the organization thinks it has a legitimate chance to win it all, but a more conservative approach can send just as strong a message.  While a middle-of-the-pack team may have to acknowledge that this isn’t the year, going out and building for the future – as long as it is not the distant future – can usually be taken to mean that the front office is willing to sacrifice an outside shot at the playoffs in order to increase its chances of winning in the long term.  Buyer or seller, every GM will be busy until tomorrow’s trade deadline.

Continue reading "Buyer or Seller?"