Making the MLB All-Star Teams

Every year, the most complained about All-Star teams are in Major League Baseball. There's always a ton of whining about who got snubbed, who didn't deserved to go, which manager showed favoritism to his own players, and so forth. The MLB All-Star teams are definitely the most difficult to put together of all the major sports because of the number of players that have to be chosen as well as a player from each team having to be chosen as well. With that in mind, I decided to give it a try. I used the current fan voting leaders for the starters, and chose the pitchers and reserves.



NL Starting Line-Up

SS- Hanley Ramirez, FLA .295, 11 HR, 46 RBI, 14 SB
LF- Ryan Braun, MIL .303, 11 HR, 49 RBI, 11 SB
1B- Albert Pujols, STL .305, 16 HR, 52 RBI
DH- Ryan Howard, PHI .296, 15 HR, 55 RBI
3B- David Wright, NYM .303, 14 HR, 61 RBI, 13 SB (Placido Polanco elected, but injured)
RF- Andre Ethier, LAD .313, 12 HR, 47 RBI
CF-Carlos Gonzalez, COL .303, 11 HR, 45 RBI, 11 SB (Jason Heyward elected, but injured)
2B- Martin Prado, ATL .331, 7 HR, 32 RBI (Chase Utley elected, but injured)
C- Yadier Molina, STL .240, 3 HR, 30 RBI

SP- Ubaldo Jimenez, COL, 14-1, 1.83 ERA, 102 K

NL Reserves

1B- Joey Votto, CIN .312, 16 HR, 51 RBI
1B- Adrian Gonzalez, SD .306, 16 HR, 50 RBI
2B- Rickie Weeks, MIL .274, 13 HR, 45 RBI
3B- Scott Rolen, CIN .301, 17 HR, 53 RBI
SS- Jose Reyes, NYM .279, 6 HR, 31 RBI, 19 SB
IF- Juan Uribe, SF .270, 12 HR, 45 RBI
OF- Andrew McCutchen, PIT .299, 7 HR, 24 RBI, 19 SB
OF- Chris Young, ARI .261, 13 HR, 50 RBI, 16 SB
OF- Corey Hart, MIL .279, 18 HR, 60 RBI
OF- Marlon Byrd, CHC .311, 9 HR, 34 RBI
C- Miguel Olivo, COL .303, 11 HR, 38 RBI

P- Adam Wainwright, STL 10-5, 2.47, 107 K
P- Josh Johnson, FLA 8-3, 1.83, 107 K
P- Roy Halladay, PHI 8-6, 2.29, 102 K
P- Mat Latos, SD 8-4, 2.85, 84 K
P- Chris Carpenter, STL 9-1, 2.70, 100 K
P- Tim Lincecum, SF 8-3, 3.13, 117 K
P- Brian Wilson, SF 2.25, 21 SV
P- Heath Bell, SD 1.93, 21 SV
P- Jonathan Broxton, LAD 1.87, 16 SV
P- Yovani Gallardo, MIL 7-3, 2.36, 115 K
P- Roy Oswalt, HOU 5-10, 3.55, 97 K
P- Stephen Strasburg, WAS 2-2, 2.27, 48 K
P- Tim Hudson, ATL 8-3, 2.37, 51 K

There were several pitchers in the NL that deserved to be included on this team: Jaime Garcia, Matt Cain, and Mike Pelfrey could all make cases. I had to include Oswalt on this team because he's still the most deserving Astro despite his 5-10 record, and there's no way I'm picking Brett Myers over him. Strasburg gets on the team mostly because he plays for the Nationals, and the fans want to see him. Jayson Werth is more deserving than Young, McCutchen, and Byrd, but they all get in as lone representatives from their clubs. The backup infielders were tough to choose from, with not too many standouts coupled with the injuries to Utley and Polanco. Reyes was the best remaining SS, and Uribe can backup all three infield spots and is having a pretty solid season.

AL Starting Line-Up

RF- Ichiro, SEA .333, 3, 22, 21
SS- Derek Jeter, NYY .286, 8, 39
1B- Justin Morneau, MIN .350, 15, 49
CF- Josh Hamilton, TEX .346, 18, 57
2B- Robinson Cano, NYY .359, 15, 53
3B- Evan Longoria, TB .297, 12, 52, 12
DH- Vladimir Guerrero, TEX .327, 15, 60
C- Joe Mauer, MIN .300, 3, 34
LF- Carl Crawford, TB, .306, 7, 38, 26

SP- David Price, TB, 11-3, 2.44, 84 K

AL Reserves

1B- Miguel Cabrera, DET .335, 20, 66
1B- Kevin Youkilis, BOS .306, 15, 50
1B- Paul Konerko, CWS .296, 20, 56
2B- Ty Wigginton, BAL .266, 13, 40
3B- Michael Young, TEX .316, 11, 52
3B- Adrian Beltre, BOS .340, 12, 52
3B- Alex Rodriguez, NYY .285, 11, 54
OF- Vernon Wells, TOR, .288, 19, 47
OF- Shin-Soo Choo, CLE, .286, 12, 41, 12
OF- Torii Hunter, LAA, .285, 12, 53
OF- Alex Rios, CWS, .312, 13, 40, 21
C- Kurt Sukuzi, OAK .264, 10, 32

P- Cliff Lee, SEA, 6-3, 2.39, 76 K
P- Jered Weaver, LAA, 7-3, 3.01, 118 K
P- Jon Lester, BOS 9-3, 2.86, 111 K
P- Andy Pettitte, NYY, 9-2, 2.72, 74 K
P- Phil Hughes, NYY, 10-1, 3.17, 78 K
P- Jose Valverde, DET, 0.53, 18 SV
P- Mariano Rivera, NYY 0.92, 17 SV
P- Rafael Soriano, TB 1.83, 18 SV
P- Zack Greinke, KC 3-8, 3.72, 89 K
P- Clay Buchholz, BOS 10-4, 2.45, 64 K
P- CC Sabathia, NYY 9-3, 3.49, 89 K
P- Jeff Niemann, TB 6-2, 2.72, 70 K

Injuries to Dustin Pedroia and Victor Martinez really helped, as Wigginton and Suzuki are able to get in as the only players from their teams. I don't have a backup SS listed, but Michael Young and ARod have both played the position. Greinke gets in as the only Royal, definitely the toughest team to pick a representative for. Biggest snubs include Brett Gardner (.321, 24 SB), Magglio Ordonez (.319, 10, 49), and Jose Bautista (.234, 20, 50).

World Cup 2010

I won't try to write an in-depth preview of the World Cup, because I know I'm not enough of an authority on soccer to try anything like that. I'm trying to get more into the game, but it's not easy to be a soccer fan in the United States.

I've tried to watch a few Philadelphia Union games, but it's hard to watch when you realize you're basically watching a Triple-A league. People love watching the World Cup because they know they're watching the best play in the World. The same can't be said about the MLS. It's been a decently successful league that will expand to 20 teams by 2012, but I can't see it ever completely catching on because it's not the best. The NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA are all the best leagues of their sports in the world. If MLB suddenly moved to Europe, would you be satisfied to watch Triple A baseball? Probably not.

For soccer to gain more of a foothold in America, there needs to be more TV coverage of European club soccer. I know there's some now, but it's usually live, hence in the afternoon on the East Coast in America, when no one will watch it. Why not put a few taped games of the English Premier League on in primetime on ESPN 2 to see how it catches on?

After watching the first half of the Mexico-South Africa game, I realize there are a few things I would love to see change about soccer. First, enough of these horns. Yeah, it's kinda fun for a little bit, but it just gets annoying after about the first five minutes of the match. Plus it drowns out any of the actual crowd noise, so when something exciting happens on the pitch, the crowd reaction doesn't seem to match.

Second, why do they feel the need to have instant replays of the stupidest things? I don't need to see a slow-mo replay of the ref giving out a yellow card. I don't need to see a slo-mo replay of a coach shaking his head. I don't need to see a slo-mo replay of a guy wagging his finger.

Speaking of the finger wagging, it needs to be outlawed from soccer. There's only one man in sports who should wag his finger, and that's Dikembe Mutombo.

The US should get out of their group; of course that's what we said four years ago when they scored a total of one goal. I'm not sure why everyone's making their match against England the most important game in US soccer history. They can lose this game and still easily move on to the second round. Their Confederations Cup matches against Spain and Brazil were much more important, but I guess ABC needs to get their ratings somehow.

Anyway, my pick to win the World Cup is Netherlands. Why? 1) I'm rooting for them 2) They've been on fire since the qualifying stages and have an easy path to the quarterfinals.

EDIT: Goal, South Africa, amazing celebration