| 2001 AL All-Stars | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Copyright 2001 Adam Barnhart. All Rights Reserved. Fair use of this document.With the pitchers and reserve selections made for this year's All-Star Teams, it seemed a good time to take a look at things and perhaps make a few observations for posterity (and perhaps a little justice): Starting Lineup
Reserves
Pitcher Joe Mays, a guy the casual fan still doesn't know about unless (s)he lives in Minnesota, starts 'cause Pedro's hurt. Mays doesn't have the dominant numbers you'd expect from an All-Star starter -- 53 Ks in 115.2 innings -- but 10-5 and a 3.03 ERA in that park is awfully impressive. He may not be the best guy to bet the future of your team on (two guys on his own team, Brad Radke and Eric Milton, better fit that bill), but he's been the most effective healthy starting pitcher in the AL this season. He gets the nod. Johnson and Wakefield, looking at the media consensus, qualify as my two other off the wall selections, but Johnson's also got a great ERA and a winning record with a mediocre team and Wakefield, despite another bullpen/rotation conversion, has been dominant this season, at nearly a strikeout an inning with a pitching line that looks not unlike Pedro's. Hudson's leading the AL in quality starts, while Garcia and Clemens have the inside track on the Cy Young with 9-1 and 11-1 records, respectively. I'd probably take Sasaki (or Foulke or Isringhausen) over Quantrill if I didn't need someone from Toronto (I decided against Shannon Stewart in the outfield) and Percival and Rivera have fairly clearly been the two best closers in the AL this season. Choosing Quantrill also avoids the Sasaki/Foulke/Isringhausen conundrum in taking another closer. Torre's selection of Stanton is a homer pick. Stanton's good, but I'm not sure there's a compelling reason to take him instead of Arthur Rhodes, Bob File, Jeff Nelson, or Al Levine. To take him instead of Hudson, who's been arguably the best starter in the league this season, is inexcusable. Catcher Picking Posada feels like a left-field selection, but he's been far and away the best hitter at the position this season and his defense is developing. Rob Fick, if he caught more (and more effectively) would be my #2 man, but he's still clearly a C/1B, though he's maybe the best C/1B since Darren Daulton. Varitek's hit better than Rodriguez this season, but I-Rod's defense would have earned the backup spot, even if Varitek hadn't gotten hurt. First Base Giambi's far and away the man, having as good a season as last year's MVP effort, maybe even a little better. The A's offense is down a run a game from last season and no one's pitching to the guy, so his counting numbers (aside from walks, in which he leads by nine over ever-patient Edgar) aren't quite as impressive, but he's still the great offensive force in the league, leading in OBP by 40 points and trailing Mike Sweeney and Manny Ramirez by just a couple of ticks in slugging. Sweeney is having an awesome year offensively, as well, making a run at Earl Webb's doubles record, posting an OBP over 400 and leading the league in slugging. The fan's selection of Olerud's isn't awful. He's a Gold Glove defender who's on base all the time in an awful offensive park, but he's lagging way behind Sweeney in the power numbers. As great a story as Doug Mientkiewicz has been this season, the idea that he's an All-Star is a joke; he's a great defender, but behind Giambi, Sweeney, Thome, Olerud, Clark, and McGriff as a hitter this year. Thome's the guy I wish I could take, with an OBP right around 400 and a slugging percentage of 600, but there's a lot of competition at the spot. McGriff's behind at least four other guys (Giambi, Sweeney, Olerud, Thome) and in the same neighborhood as four others (Clark, Mientkiewicz, Delgado, Palmeiro), but he's the one guy on the Devil Rays who you can make a good case for getting on the roster (Vaughn seems like a pretty serious error to me). Second Base Alomar and Boone are close offensively, though in very different ways; Alomar might be the best table-setter in the league, Boone's leading the league in RBI. Boone's driven in and scored more runs, but gives up some defense to Alomar, who's earned at least a couple of his Gold Gloves. Boone, then, gets the nod on the basis of hanging those numbers in a tougher park. Alomar's a better player than Boone, but Boone's having his Norm Cash season, and it seems only fair to recognize it. Velarde was playing at an All-Star clip until he got hurt, though not quite at the level where Alomar and Boone are this year. Kennedy and Menechino are well behind these guys, but might have been All-Stars with their performances in another season...both, I think, count as "pleasant surprises" to their teams. Easley, having an average season by his standards, is in that mix as well. But Alomar and Boone are clearly the cream of the crop. Third Base Probably the easiest position in either league to call the leading man for...Glaus is miles ahead of every other third baseman in the AL. We can give Cal Ripken some sort of honorary title here -- Third Base Emeritus or something -- but he's the worst 3B in baseball at this point. I don't mind having him around for one more year, really, but he's certainly doing his Brooks Robinson impersonation this time around, hanging around a little longer than his effective life as a baseball player. Koskie hasn't hit as well as Brosius, but could have been picked based on his defense. Shortstop A-Rod's earning his keep this season, insofar as any baseball player can earn $25 million for a year's work. Nobody's talking about him this year as an MVP candidate, which means that he'll probably get hosed again, but he'd get my vote for the first half this season. Jeter could be the backup...he's about even with Guzman offensively, adjusted for park, but Jeter's defensive range numbers, which were never all that great, are awful this season. He'll be back at some point, but he's clearly off his game a bit, though he's showing signs of picking up going into the second half of the season. Valentin could be the #2 man, but he's been all over the field this year, and not all that impressive with the glove at any of those spots (though, to be honest, he's a better defensive outfielder than I thought he'd be). Shane Halter and Benji Gil (!) have had great half-seasons. Outfield Ichiro won the fan voting and has become a media phenomenon this year. I'll even admit that he's been better than I thought he'd be. He's a good defender and a great hitter for average and base stealer. He never walks and he doesn't have much power, though, making him precisely the sort of player who's going to be overrated. His numbers, at first glance, really don't look like the numbers of an All-Star, but he's hitting .500 with runners in scoring position, which gives him the nod as a backup OF over Shannon Stewart, Marty Cordova, and Matt Lawton; he and Burks are both borderline selections. Mike Cameron's a better player than Ichiro in terms of everything but BA; he could start ahead of Bernie Williams. Cameron and Torii Hunter are the best defensive outfielders in the league; the failure of anyone to even consider Cameron as a potential All-Star, I think, is a real failing. Higginson is on base a ton and has power and defensive value that Tony Clark doesn't have at first. Basically, I'd rather have him here with McGriff at first than Clark at first and Vaughn (or Winn) in the outfield. The other picks are fairly easy. Williams has really come around since the beginning of the season, and Ramirez and Gonzalez are the great mashers in the league, though Ramirez's plate discipline makes him a significantly better hitter, though Gonzalez's .384 OBP is nothing to shed any tears over. Designated Hitter Edgar's the best ever at the position. He's just having another 305/436/537 season. In contrast to recent years, there don't seem to be too many travesties on this year's team. As much as it pains me to see seven Yankees on Torre's team, I've got six of my own. I'd like to have included Jim Thome, Shannon Stewart, and maybe another closer on my team, but the cast of characters isn't unlike the one Torre will convene in Seattle. Aside from the absence of Wakefield and maybe Hudson and the presence of Stanton, Torre's selections, given the fan sentimentality built into the starting lineup, look pretty good to me.
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