The Second Best All-Star Game

Since MLB announced the 2015 All-Star Game rosters this past Tuesday, a lot of discussion surrounding the rosters has dealt with who is not there. By now you have probably read several articles online about how Clayton Kershaw was snubbed or how Brock Holt is somehow an All-Star. Rather than write another one one of these articles and just name the snubs seemingly everyone else has or the guys who don’t deserve to be there, I decided to try to create a second All-Star game. Many players are having excellent and under the radar seasons that have gotten little attention because they are playing positions with established stars. The rules for this game are the same as the MLB All-Star Game. There must be at least one player present from each team and I have used the same roster sizes and distribution of hitters and pitchers and no players who have already been named to the All-Star game or who are on the final vote will appear here. This is strictly for guys who have been overlooked. Some of these guys you see are hurt, others aren’t having quite the season worthy of the big game, but all are having good seasons and deserve recognition. Some even deserve to be in the actual All-Star game. With that in mind, here is the starting lineup for the Second Best All-Star Game.

The Starters

The AL:

Brian McCann is top 5 in the among all catchers in SLG%, and fWAR, he should be in the All-Star game instead of Salvador Perez. Jose Abreu is second among AL 1B with a .296 AVG. Dustin Pedroia has already surpassed last year’s home run total and is top 5 among all 2B in BA, OBP and SLG%.  Evan Longoria’s power is down but is he’s in the top of among AL 3B in BA and OBP. Carlos Correa has only played 29 games but sits 1 HR behind the AL SS leader. He’s already one of the best SS int the game and is definitely a future MVP candidate. After a slow start where he hit .230 in March/April Mookie Betts has been on fire lately hitting .330 in June and is now 6th in among AL outfielders in WAR and plays great defense. Kevin Kiermaier hasn’t done much with the bat but has clearly been the best defensive player in baseball this season. Before he got hurt, George Springer had a shot at a 30/30 season. He’s definitely a future All-Star. Did anyone really expect Alex Rodriguez to have 16 HR and a .382 OBP at the break? He should have been an All-Star.

The NL:

Francisco Cervelli has a .366 OBP and has been a top 5 catcher in most pitch framing metrics. He’s more than worthy of being here and is probably an All-Star in most seasons with these numbers. Joey Votto is finally healthy again and is having a great season. He’s got a .388 OBP and is third among all NL 1B in WAR. He should probably have been an All-Star instead of Adrian Gonzalez and considering the game is in Cincinnati, it’s an even bigger snub. Kolten Wong is one of the best young 2B in baseball. He leads all NL 2B in HR and is third in WAR. The players got it wrong when they voted DJ LeMahieu over him. Justin Turner has been a revelation since signing in Los Angeles two years ago. He’s hitting .310 and has the highest OBP among NL 3B and second highest WAR. Shortstop is a pretty weak position overall this year but Andrelton Simmons is still a generational defender and has the most defensive runs saved in the entire NL. Charlie Blackmon, Starling Marte and Jason Hayward rank sixth, seventh and eighth respectively among NL outfielders in WAR. All three are excellent 5-tool players who as defenders rank in the top 10 among NL outfielders in UZR and are also top 15 in batting average and SB.

The Pitchers

The AL:

Corey Kluber is the reigning Cy Young winner and leads all pitchers in WAR. He’s and easy choice and should’ve been an All-Star. Clay Buchholz was a sleeper of mine a while back and has been on fire recently.  He has the third lowest FIP and second highest WAR in the AL. Ubaldo Jimenez, Scott Kazmir, Lance McCullers and Yovani Gallardo are all having strong seasons with three of the ten lowest ERAs in the AL among starters. While these three are likely to regress to varying degrees because of their low BABIPs, their strong first half performances merit recognition. Michael Pineda has the 6th highest K/9 and second lowest BB/9 in the AL. Ignore the relatively high ERA. He’s been one of the best pitchers in baseball this year as evident by having the fourth lowest FIP and eighth highest WAR for starters in the AL. Jake Odorizzi was one of the best starters in the AL before he got hurt and has the fifth lowest WHIP in the AL. David Robertson, Cody Allen, Andrew Miller are three of the best closers in the AL and all have three of the top five K/9 numbers among relievers in the AL. Carson Smith and Roberto Osuna are both young pitchers who have become their team’s closer recently and both are top 10 in the AL among relievers in WAR.

The NL:

The NL starting pitching is absolutely loaded this year and almost any of these guys had a reasonable case to be an All-Star. After finishing 9th in Cy Young voting last year, Jake Arietta is sure to have another top 10 finish considering he has an ERA of 2.80 and the 5th highest WAR among NL starters. Though he is one of the most extreme fastball reliant pitchers in the game, Lance Lynn still posts great numbers generates the second lowest hard contact rate. Jordan Zimmermann has the lowest K/9 of any starter on this team but despite that, Zimmermann is still able to post a low 3.04 ERA because of his low HR/9 numbers. Cole Hamels probably should have been an All-Star instead of teammate Jonathan Papelbon. Hamels has the eighth highest K/9 and has the fifth highest strand rate.  The guy who generates the fewest hard contact and most soft contact in the NL is Francisco Liriano. Liriano has the fourth highest K/9 and has an ERA below 3. The guy with the next best K-BB% in the NL after Scherzer and Kershaw is Jason Hammel. Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard are two of the best young starters in the game. Harvey has been very good since coming back from his injury and Syndergaard has been excellent since being called up. AJ Ramos, Jason Grilli and Drew Storen rank in the top five of NL relievers in WAR and all have FIPs below 2.07. Carter Capps has the highest K/9 in all of baseball and Kevin Siegrist is the top setup man on the top team in baseball.

The Reserves

Final Vote

Main Photo