Slanted Sabr: LWOS All-Star Game Final Vote Picks

The “MLB All-Star Game Final Vote” ballots were announced for each league last night, along with the full All-Star Rosters. For the AL, a collection of starting pitchers are the candidates (Dallas Keuchel, Garret Richards, Corey Kluber, Rick Porcello, and Chris Sale) while the NL ballot is composed of position players (Casey McGhee, Justin Morneau, Anthony Rizzo, Justin Upton, and Anthony Rendon). Fans can vote here to send one more player from each league the All-Star Game. You’re probably asking yourself, “Who should I pick?” No? Well let’s pretend you are.

All-Star Game Final Vote

American League

There isn’t one pitcher in that AL group who doesn’t deserve to go, plain and simple. But Chris Sale deserves it the most. Sale undoubtedly would have been picked as a normal selection had he not missed time early on with an injury, which has of course limited his innings pitched. Yet Sale’s numbers this year in limited time have been described as “Kershaw-esque.” Pick your jaw up off the floor and stop rolling your eyes, the numbers don’t lie. In 87.1 innings pitched, Sale has a 2.16 ERA. The advanced metrics say he’s been that good too. FIP gives him a 2.49 mark, xFIP gives him a 2.80. In just 13 starts, he’s amassed 2.9 fWAR.

The baseball gods smile upon this author, because by a stroke of good luck Clayton Kershaw has also tossed 87.1 innings thus far. So let’s use a handy-dandy chart to compare the two. When viewing the below chart, one must remember that the moniker “Kershaw-esque” implies that nobody can truly the god in human form that is Clayton Kershaw, only be stupidly good. So without further ado, the chart:

That turned out a lot more interesting than I thought it would it be. The most striking matter to me is that the two pitchers have identical WHIP’s, at 0.87. That’s one hell of a mark. Sale also has a lower rate of fly balls turning into homers. It’s in a small sample size to be sure, but Sale actually plays in a more homer-friendly park. Obviously Kershaw is striking out more guys because, well, he’s Kershaw. That factors into how obscene his FIP and xFIP is. Kershaw is also inducing a ton more ground balls. It’s far and away a career high for him, but strangely enough his BABIP against is higher. I’m willing to chalk that up to the White Sox having a pretty good infield, and Kershaw having a severe case of Hanley Ramirez. Also, if you induce more ground balls, some of them will go through (and also just dumb luck).

On a (slightly) more serious note, though, this season Sale has been Kershaw Lite, but the Premium Edition of Kershaw Lite. We must also remember that Sale’s been dealing with DH’s, and Kershaw hasn’t. As I mentioned earlier, Sale’s home field is very hitter-friendly, while Dodger Stadium plays more favorably towards pitchers. Sale has only made four starts away from home so far, and only two of them were at pitcher-friendly parks (Kansas City and Anaheim). So yeah, you really should vote for Chris Sale. Kuechel, Richards, Kluber, Porcello have all been awesome, but Sale’s been obscene.

National League

The NL is a bit of a murkier situation. I don’t particularly dislike any of those players… but it’s time to narrow the field. As much as I love Justin Morneau, and would love to see him return to Minnesota, you’ve got to believe that Coors Field has fueled some of his success this year. Casey McGhee has done a hell of a job protecting Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup. He gets tons of credit for having this much success after coming back from spending a year playing in Japan.

The last three have been better. Justin Upton has been, well Justin Upton. He came into Monday’s action hitting a tick over .270, has hit 17 bombs, and playing middling defense. He’s also been striking out at a prodigious rate. Then there’s Anthony Rizzo. I wrote extensively on how much I love him earlier in the season. He’s got one of those pretty 2/3/4 slash lines, and launched his eighteenth homer of the season last night. He’s also a plus fielder.

The problem is, you can say all of those things (except for the homer total) about Anthony Rendon. Including that his name is Anthony. The other major difference is that Rendon plays second and third, while Rizzo plays first. Well, back to the table we go. The defensive stats and fWAR are only reflective of performance coming into Monday night’s game, but they barely fluctuate game-to-game. Freakishly, they both have 374 plate appearances. The baseball gods smile on me.

So here’s an interesting quandary. Rizzo is better in every category except batting average and fWAR. Rendon also has 8 steals (caught twice) to Rizzo’s 2 (caught thrice). That feeds into Rendon’s higher fWAR, and the steals themselves feed off Rendon’s OBP that’s 42 points higher than Rizzo’s.

Rendon also has a higher fWAR because of the positions he plays, second and third. WAR means Wins Above Replacement, and it’s a well-known fact that first basemen tend to have better bats than their fellow infielders. That’s how Rendon gets away with his surprisingly low defensive metrics, his offensive prowess. On the whole, if we’re going to talk about who’s the “better player,” I take Rizzo. He’s a pure middle-of-the-order bat, and the kind of guy you build a lineup around. And it’s a welcome surprise when a first baseman has a plus glove.

But for this one player slot, I take Rendon. Rendon’s on-base skills, base-swiping potential, and ability to play both second and third make him a valuable asset off the bench. And while Rizzo is probably the guy with the most entertainment potential (chicks dig the long ball, after all), the All-Star Game counts for home field advantage in the World Series and should be played to win. We can argue the merit of that reward until the cows come home, but that’s the way it’s currently set up. Manager Mike Matheney already seems to recognize this with the controversial pick of Josh Harrison to the roster. Harrison has less of a bat than Rendon, but can play more positions. Flexibility is a massively underrated part of roster-building, and while having more than 25 guys is certainly a boon, Rendon has easily played his way into this game.

Those are your official LOWS-endorsed Final Vote picks. Sale is a no-brainier, and while Rendon isn’t the sexiest pick, he’s the right one if the game is to mean what it does. Rizzo will have many chances to make the All-Star squad in future years, as I expect him to be central to the Cubs’ upcoming run to the division title. All of the eligible players are certainly worthy of making the team, but these two are just, well, more worthy. Especially Chris Sale.

Seriously, how did he not make the squad naturally? Madness. Sheer madness.

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