The Bench Jockeys

On Sunday July 3^rd, roster selections were announced for the Major League All-Star Game which will be played in Phoenix on June 12^th. The Process:  Fan Balloting establishes the 8 positional starters for both the American League and the National League teams, including the DH on the AL squad.  Player voting accounts for an additional 16 players on each team (5 starting pitchers, 3 relievers and 8 positional back-ups).  World Series Managers, Ron Washington and Bruce Bochy, fill out their respective 34-man rosters with an additional 8 position players ensuring that each team in the league has at least one representative on the All-Star Team.  Finally, the fans vote on one additional player, the 34^th, from a list of five nominations from each league.

Until 2002, the All-Star Game had no impact on the MLB post-season.  It was purely an exhibition game where fans could simply enjoy a game that featured the league’s best players all on the same field, but in 2003 current baseball Commissioner, Bud Selig, mutated the Mid-summer Classic from a passive, easy-listening showcase into an ill-will-inducing, results-driven competition with a significant post-season impact.  The League that wins the All-Star Game earns home field advantage in the World Series when the AL and NL Pennant winners square off in October.  The baseball season is a punishing 162-game marathon which occurs over the course of 183 days.  Using the results of an exhibition game to establish home field advantage (or have any influence whatsoever) for the league championship of the sport is positively idiotic.

The very composition of the all-star team is incongruous with the critical effect of the game’s outcome.  At least one player from every major league team must be included on the all-star roster in this “everyone is a winner” play date.  In consideration of this requirement, this year, the following players are being deemed All-Stars:

These five players are perhaps the better players on their respective teams but in no way, shape or form do any of them merit All-Star status.  Gio Gonzalez has a solid ERA, but he is 7-5 and other AL pitchers are more worthy.   Yes, closer, Brandon League leads the AL in saves, but he is far from dominant. (I don’t get this one; Ron Washington already had King Felix from Seattle on the squad and didn’t need to add League.)   Wieters has a gun for an arm at catcher, but he is not the 3^rd best catcher in the AL. (Granted, he is better than Russell Martin of the Yanks who was inexplicably selected, but Victor Martinez is having a better season.)  Cuddyer’s numbers are very pedestrian for an outfielder just as Sanchez’s are for a first baseman.

So these players are filling All-Star roster slots while players who could actually help either Bruce Bochy or Ron Washington win this game will be watching on television.  Enjoying the play-at-home version will be:

The All-Star Game used to be a way that baseball gave back to the fans; kind of a breather from the daily grind where the best in the game played something akin to a pick-up game, just for kicks. Everyone got to play because the outcome was irrelevant.  Bud Selig extinguished the light-heartedness of the original game, causing fans began to consider more weighty discourse relative the match-up.  If the All Star Game is going to affect the post-season, isn’t it time to re-examine the roster composition requirements?  Shouldn’t the managers set the starting rosters instead of the fans?  If winning is the new objective, why wouldn’t the best players simply stay in the whole game while the more marginal selections ride the pine?  What value does the “player form every team” requirement add to a game? It is no coincidence that players from NY and Boston dominate the starting rosters in the AL, should the teams with the largest fanbase hold such selection power?   Over countless hours, fans can debate the highlights of every season, the merits of every team, the strengths and weaknesses of every player and the true value of every statistic.  This is the constant of baseball.  Courtesy of Bud Selig, the All-Star Game is now no different.

Fast Fact:  In the two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right department, the modification of the All-Star Game to establish World Series home field advantage was devised by Selig in response to his 2002 all-star gaffe where he was roundly criticized for letting the 2002 game end in a tie.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 3rd, 2011 at 23:51 and is filed under Professional Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.