Another July, another pair of All-Star Game roster reveals. Another season for determining whom benefitted undeservedly from the fan vote. Another season for saying emphatically that it's long past time to restrict or remove the fan vote. Another season for asking, hey, isn't it bad enough when the fans vote legacies over current performance, we need the commissioner horning in with legend (read: legacy) picks?
Well, hold it just a moment. This time Commissioner Pepperwinkle got something right. (And, proved he actually does know how to let bygones be bygones.) His National League pick is Bryce Harper. It makes sense for two reasons: 1) The All-Star Game will be played in Philadelphia. 2) Harper's actually having a season that may not be chock full of black ink, but it has him halfway to an all-star season by WAR's definition. (5.0+; Harper's at 2.5.)
Not that WAR means a lot to enough fan voters, still. How else do you explain Andy Pages (Dodgers) voted to the starting NL lineup (his WAR is more than respectable at 4.1) and Pete Crow-Armstrong (Cubs), who's leading the Show with his 5.1, relegated to the reserves? PCA has had a tendency to put his foot in his mouth now and then and that probably hurt, but he really did deserve to start.
That might be simpler to explain than the fan voters snubbing Brice Turang (Brewers) in favor of Ozzie Albies (Braves) to start at second base and Luis Arraez as the backup. And you don't even need to go to WAR to see this as a grave error. Turang has a higher OPS and a better defensive performance, as ESPN's David Schoenfeld points out. Not to mention Turang is far more run productive. Arraez should be backing Turang.
Well, PCA is one of the outfield backups, along with Corbin Carroll (Diamondbacks), Jordan Walker (Cardinals), and James Woods (Nationals). Those guys are voted in by the players, who also vote in the pitchers. And, Lucy, they'd have some splainin' to do about voting Paul Skenes onto the NL all-star pitching staff if not for one sad fact: somebody has to rep the Pirates, that's the rules.
Skenes isn't terrible this year, but he set himself an early-career bar high enough that only a daredevil highwire walker could think about traversing it. That's not his fault, and it's not his fault that he's pitching in a lot of hard luck. (The Pirates at this writing have lost nine straight Skenes starts.) That 3.03 fielding-independent pitching rate is a rate a lot of pitchers would accept in a trade for their mothers' corpses on platters. But it's 63 points higher than Skenes posted his first two seasons and 67 points higher than the rate with which he led the entire Show last year.
We're not letting American League fans off the hook, either. There was a point where Ben Rice (Yankees) looked like the deserving starter. Except that a) Willson Contreras (Red Sox) is doing better all-around than Rice. Okay, both of those guys are doing better than fan-vote starter Vladimir Guerrero, Jr., which tells you something about names making differences even if their performance papers aren't backing them up this time around. Sorry fans, sorry players, but Nick Kurtz (Athletics) should have been the AL's starting first baseman.
So, whom did the fans get right? Junior Caminero, call your office. Absolutely and incontrovertibly he should be the AL's starting third baseman. He's not making anyone forget Hall of Famers Brooks Robinson or Adrián Beltré with the leather (he's -4 defensive runs below the AL average), but he sure resembles Beltré and Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt at the plate.
Remember, too, that José Ramirez (Guardians) is on the injured list. Even if he wasn't, he was having the worst year of his major league life so far. Aaron Judge (Yankees) is also on the IL. The fans voted him a starter anyway, even with no timeline for his return. Angels legend Mike Trout was also voted a starter, and he swears he'll be back from the IL in time to play his twelfth ASG. The future Hall of Famer was producing respectably enough on the power side, even if it's clear that the injuries hitting him since 2021 have left him only occasionally resembling the guy who yanked the game inside out with his eight absolute peak seasons.
Meanwhile, Brewers and other fans are praying for a Tuesday rainout to knock Jacob Misiorowski's starting schedule into line for allowing him to start the ASG for the NL. Les Mis himself is on record saying he'd love to do it. If he stays on schedule he'd start the final game before the All-Star break and not be eligible to start for the NL.
That would leave someone else to take the ball, most likely Cristopher Sanchez (Phillies), who's having a year drawing almost as much attention as Misiorowski. Phillie fans have another reason to fume: Perhaps inexplicably, Zack Wheeler's an all-star snub this time around.
All the foregoing and more, especially the specter of season-long interleague play, make the All-Star Game an exercise in futility. But, with apologies to Edward R. Murrow, it can't hurt to watch the game, anyhow.
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