The Life and Times of the Watters Family

MLB All-Star Travesty

Once again, we’re a little less than a month away from the Major League Baseball All-Star Game, and the voters have missed the boat…again. Although I shouldn’t be surprised, like previous years, this years voting is shaping up to be more of a popularity contest than a reflection of on-field performance. For instance, it seems clear to me that, barring a colossal meltdown, Carlos Guillen should be the starting shortstop for the American League this year.

As of today, among shortstops he is:

• 1st in Runs Scored
• 1st in OPS
• 2nd in RBI
• 2nd in batting average
• 2nd in Home Runs

Keep in mind too that he is only .004 back in batting average and that keeping his RBI total down is the fact that most of his at-bats have come while batting in the #2 slot; well more than half of his total at-bats have come with the bases empty.

And so far, he hasn’t been a slouch defensively either, having the second highest fielding percentage among shortstops that have played more than 50 games and the first among shortstops playing more than 500 innings.

Of the top 5 vote getters at shortstop (at the moment), only Michael Young and Miguel Tejada even belong in the conversation and they’re 3 and 4 respectively. The #2 vote-getter, Nomar, while playing well, has only played in 7 games. And for a guy who gets paid $18.6 million a year, the #1 vote-getter, Derek Jeter has been terrible this year. He’s .060 off his career batting average and .102 off his career OPS. Do those sound like All-Star numbers to you? Me neither.

In fact, Guillen has probably been the best offensive player for the Tigers this year. None the less, he’ll likely take a back seat to Ivan Rodriguez, who seems to be doing just fine dominating the voting at catcher. Let’s just hope Joe Torre has enough sense to take the two additional shortstops whose numbers have actually justified a place on the 2004 American League All-Star Team.

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