Thoughts on the 2015 Major League Baseball All-Star Game
-The Franchise Four vote should not be considered scientific by any means, but wow, it can be endlessly dissected and debated. 1) Nolan Ryan made it onto the “Mount Rushmore” of three different franchises-- the Rangers, Astros, and Angels-- and his career winning percentage is only .526 (324-292). 2) Whitey Ford has 10 career World Series wins and can’t crack the Yankees’ top four, but the Rockies have room for Andres Galarraga. 3) The White Sox have been around since 1901. Can they really not do better than Harold Baines and Paul Konerko? 4) My Cardinals choices would have been a little different-- with Lou Brock replaced by Albert Pujols. Hate to leave Ozzie out, though. The influence of his personality on the "us-against-the-world" franchise is very underrated-- and he was very dominant at his position for 15 years.-Now, to this “Four Greatest Living Players” list that I didn't know about until last night. You the fans chose Hank Aaron, Johnny Bench, Sandy Koufax, and Willie Mays. I find it easy to quibble, but I won’t offer an alternative list exactly. (I will agree that this is the “Four Greatest Living Players that are also the oldest.”) Only to say that Greg Maddux and Pedro Martinez were dominant pitchers, and so were Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens. And I guess I will add my opinion that, come on now, Barry Bonds is the greatest living baseball player. Then I will opine that, if what Johnny Bench was doing in the 1970s warrants him to be in company this exclusive, than Ted Simmons at least, and at last, belongs in the Hall of Fame. Bench must have been casting quite a shadow at that time. Also, did you know that Bob Gibson’s career WAR (Wins Above Replacement) are 81.9 and Koufax’s are 53.2. And these are Gibson’s World Series numbers-- (7-2, 1.89).
-Instead, I will offer a “Four Greatest Living Players” list with modified categories-- Greatest Hitter: Bonds, Greatest Pitcher: Maddux, Greatest Defensive Player: Ozzie, Greatest Baserunner: Rickey Henderson. You could make the argument that, adding the candidacies of all the dead players, these would still be the Great Four.
-Love that the outcome of the All-Star Game determines home-field advantage in the World Series. The argument that it’s too arbitrary don’t resonate because the old rule had the leagues alternating years and you can’t get more random then that. But Jesus, National League, show some spirit. It’s been the rule for over a decade, and there’s still a palpable lifelessness to the team each year.
-You must know that I'm compelled to grumble about this. The Cardinals have 56 wins at the mid-summer break and a real shot at the Series. They had six players named to the losing National League squad, and manager Bruce Bochy of the Giants played only two of the six. The two that played, Jhonny Peralta and Yadier Molina, were perfect at the plate-- two singles, a walk, and an RBI. Two more were basically hurt, or opting out for rest-- Matt Holliday and Trevor Rosenthal. But where were the young pitching phenoms Michael Wacha and Carlos "Tsunami" Martinez? Adding Rosenthal, the Cards have three All-Star pitchers under the age of 25 and America got to see none of them.
-Clayton Kershaw, huh? This guy is so last year, yet Bochy puts him out there to surrender two runs in one inning and take the loss. The Dodgers left-hander is only 6-6 and has a higher ERA than non-All-Stars Jake Arrieta and Johnny Cueto. He's been beaten like a drum in back-to-back postseason series by the Cardinals. He's named by neither the manager nor the players to the teamm initially. He loses the final fan vote to Carlos “Little Pedro” Martinez of the Cardinals. And then Bochy finally adds him to the squad as an injury replacement. Meanwhile, Martinez, the only pitcher on the squad voted to the team by the fans, owner of a 2.52 ERA, a 10-3 record, and a resume that shows 16 games of postseason experience as a relief pitcher, does not appear in relief in the game. Carlos' extraordinary season-long tribute to the late Oscar Taveras, including the adoption of his uniform number, is denied a grand stage and baseball turns its back on an inspirational story.
-Boo Birds: The highlight of the night might have been the Reds fans booing the six Cardinals players-- plus Albert Pujols-- during the introductions. (Bonus: there’s a marvelous GIF floating around of Albert joining in on the loudest booing of the night, that for Yadi Molina.) My wife hates booing, and I had to explain this particular Reds/Cardinals dynamic to her. I shared with her my theory that Cardinals players would be likely booed at All-Star Games in Kansas City, Chicago North, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and possibly Milwaukee and Los Angeles West. She then remarked, quite accurately, of Reds fans: “They have issues.”
-My bride is also astutely concerned about the proliferation of red-clad teams in baseball. (The Cards’ sartorial choices are as imitated as their front office moves.) We spent part of last evening looking at photos online of the uniforms the Angels (red trim only), Diamondbacks (purple and teal), Astros (orange), Rangers (predominately blue), and Expos/Nationals (predominately blue) used to wear. This might also be the time to point out that the Indians wearing red on their uniforms is kind of culturally offensive.
-I can’t remember an All-Star Game so lacking in emphasis on the Yankees and Red Sox.
-Grisly details are surely coming soon about the TV ratings for last night’s game, breaking down the disheartening age demographics, and again baseball will be “in trouble.” But here’s the thing: television audiences have become remarkably splintered. It’s an unreliable gauge for a famously-regional sport that just happens to be staggeringly profitable. The highest rated series on TV this year was FOX's Empire. It posted an overall Nielsen rating of 7.1 in the "coveted" 18-49 age demographic. In 1985, the highest rated show (Dynasty) had a 25.0 rating. A 7.1 finish would place a series outside the Nielsen top 50. I'm on the internet right now. Where are all the Empire is dying stories?
-So many All-Stars under the age of 25 this year, and they looked it.
-Cincinnati hero Todd Frazier went oh-for-three on the night with a line that looked like this-- 5-3, 6-3, 5-3. Did he think he was competing in the Slow Chopper to the Left Side Derby?
-As a back-to-back All-Star Game MVP, Mike Trout now has been given two free motor vehicles. I guess if they’re Chevys, they need replacing after one year
-Baseball is in full bloom, but if you tuned in to sports talk radio today, you probably heard a pair of douche bags talking about football. It’s hard for Major League Baseball to compete for attention. All it offers for fan debate is the traditional “Who’s better?” type-of-argument and some ancient discord about Hall of Fame eligibility. How can the league compete with the NFL and that sport’s infinite tales of domestic violence, criminal malfeasance, brain injury, musical franchises, Spy-gates, Bounty-gates, and Inflate-gates? We’re stuck this summer with boring pennant races involving a dozen or more 25-or-under superstars.
posted by CM @ 9:14 PM
9 Comments:
You're ridiculous. You contradict yourself so many times here, and your former tirades against rewarding first half performances. You really think Clayton Kershaw shouldn't be on the All Star team? Good thing Stan Musial wasn't robbed of all those All Star teams because they rewarded some 3 month star Carlos Martinez- type. Oh I forgot he pitched long relief on some playoff teams. Of course you used to defend the "established stars over 3 month performance" philosophy back before your stars all played for the Angels. Good thing they did the established star thing back when Ozzie Smith was robbing Larkin of starts. I admit the Cardinals have a knack for finding guys who are studs for 2 years, then flame out and leave town, to be replaced by a new 2 year stud, but some people actually want to see the 2 best NL pitchers (Kershaw and Cueto).
And are you aware that when people select the players they actually are not yet aware of how they'll perform in their single inning of play?
So many stars under 25 and they showed it? A few paragraphs after where are the under 25 Cardinal stars? Jeez, Wednesday morning quarterback much? I'm sure their jerseys would have matured them in the moment. Plus what kind of argument is that- 4 Cardinals didn't play, but wait, I admit half of them are injured.
And the Cardinals were blue when you started to like them, doofus. Does Aidah know that?
And you do get that there are some teams that have been around 30 years instead of 130, right? And existed when players were distributed between 30 teams in the league, instead of 16, so maybe their stars aren't quite the Hall of Fame caliber? I think you understand this, just checking.
If you want to tirade about something, try to figure out why Yadier Molina has all those All Star starts over Buster Posey. It will look more strange when one is in the Hall of Fame and the other isn't. Of course, your defending of Molina (his Gold Glove defense) will also be your defense of Ozzie Smith (his glove), but you will totally ignore this argument when you dismiss the greatest defensive player of All Time, Johnny Bench.
Maybe I don't fully respect Kershaw and Cueto because every time I see them in person or on television the Cardinals are beating the tar out of them.
I've never advocated for lifetime performance as the barometer. I've advocated for going back to the previous year's All-Star game so that first-half performances are not rewarded more than second-half ones. Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez are both three-year pros who have already paid their dues waiting for this. I know that, in your mind, it's 2010 and Cueto, Phillips, and Votto are still great players, but at this point, they're closer to Hamels, Utley, and Howard than they are Wacha, Wong, and Carpenter.
By "they showed it", I meant that some of these 25 and under guys, like Tampa's Chris Archer, physically appear to be very young. That wasn't a comment about anybody's performance.
Martinez didn't pitch long relief in those playoff games. He was the 8th inning shutdown man in more playoff games than Johnny Cueto will ever see. He has thrown more important pitches at 23 than Cueto will ever throw if he stays with the Reds.
Find me the year Stan the Man didn't deserve it. His stats are at baseball-reference.com. He's probably the MLB player most-often recognized for his consistency, and his All-Star record is an important reflection of that. Stan also had three championships in his first five years. Clayton Kershaw is the biggest choke artist competing today in possibly any major professional sport. (Yasiel Puig would be second.) To get his first championship, Kershaw is going to have to go through the Cardinals and the American League, two groups of hitters that own him. He got an MVP award last year, against all odds, and then the Cardinals turned that vote into a punchline in the NLDS.
Yes, "some" people want to see Cueto and Kershaw over Martinez, but many more don't. You and I actually participated in a vote that settled that. The final: 1. Martinez, 2. Cueto, 3. Familia, 4. Kershaw, 5. Tulowitzki. Why aren't you mad that Bochy would pick Kershaw OVER CUETO?
Your Posey/Molina comment should be flipped. Posey got an MVP so he's doing alright. Where's Molina's? Posey's team is there three times, surrounded by mediocrity every other season. Yadi's been in the World Series or within two games of it SEVEN freaking times. Career WAR: Molina 30.4, Posey 26.9. The pitching staff Yadi is catching this year has the lowest ERA in baseball since 1972, and their #1 has been out almost the entire time. Who gets credit for that? Not the catcher, in your mind, and none of those pitchers got within 30 feet of the mound on Tuesday. And then the National League staff gave up six runs! You gotta believe that's frustrating.
Ozzie Smith's career WAR: 76.5, Larkin, 70.2. Johnny Bench 75.0
Still ridiculous. Posey surrounded by mediocrity in the years he doesn't win the World Series? With 3 World Series in 5 years? But what about the mediocrity surrounding Molina in the 60 games they'll lose this year. You're mental.
And it's called a sample size. Congrats on owning Kershaw, especially when it counts, but I believe his mastery over every other team the last few years has earned him the right to pitch the 5th inning of the All Star game. You do know, right, that it makes the Cardinals look better if you can claim they dominate a 10 time All Star pitcher than if they dominate a 4 time All Star pitcher?
There are many choke artists. They flood the playoffs every year and can be found easily in great numbers on every team except the one who wins that year, but of course, you're biased toward the Cardinals as I'm alleging, so you feel Kershaw and Puig are the worst. I'm sure it gave you great delight to type that the Cardinals own Kershaw and Cueto, but again, this is a sample size, one team out of 29 beating them, and actually makes my point of your bias and blind spot toward every other team's perspective. Do you know if the Giants, a superior current franchise to the Cardinals, have had success against Kershaw or Cueto? Of course not, you don't watch those games.
Where's your defense of the essential role players on the 90s Yankees and why they weren't all on the All Star teams those years? Being a role player isn't enough. Even if it's easy to argue. Take, for example, my brilliant, reasonable, convincing argument that Brandon Phillips (once again this year the most spectacular glove in baseball since Ozzie Smith) and Billy Hamilton (twice as many steals as any other player) could have been All Stars.
The Cardinals own Kershaw and Cueto, but I'm quite content to own you in this argument.
The outcome of baseball games are biased towards the Cardinals. At last it comes down to this: The Reds have three non-losing series head-to-head in the last 24 against the Cardinals-- six in the last 35 going back to 2003. But might you still declare your team the winners, as you've declared yourself here? I anticipate a reply.
Our arguments on this stuff, as brothers, are timeworn, but it dawns on me that, to the outsider, this is just a Cardinals fan bullying a Reds fan. Having so much when someone else has so little makes these arguments seem petty from my end so I'm going to stop this one. MLB doesn't have a mercy rule, but maybe it should.
Do you really think the Cards are going to lose 60 games this year?
Thank you for conceding to my points. And yes, winning these arguments consistently while you quote WAR statistics and the last 24 series (Oh no, I was praying to god you wouldn't think to google the last 24 series! I haven't looked it up but are you aware the Reds have actually had 4 non-losing series in the last 25? See? Now things are turning back toward me...) definitely makes me feel like the winner. Trust me, it's more satisfying to point out your biased arguments than delude myself that it'd make me happier if my randomly selected team had outshined your randomly selected team in the last quarter of our lives. Just because you wrap up your self-worth in that age old selection doesn't mean I'm still using it to do the same, or to look down on Cub fans as if they were some accident of birth. I get invested and have those tendencies too, but even back then I never broke a whiffle bat over it.
P.S. It's unprofessional to reply to your blog commenters.
Blogs are discussion sites designed to be interactive, and are a form of social networking. That's why "You" were the Time magazine person of the year in 2006. Sometimes these networking sites devolve into personality conflict and name-calling, but that's mostly you and me and Brandon Phillips' Twitter feed.
I would never call being a Cubs fan an accident "of birth." That denies the "free will" aspect that lies at the heart of your very interesting point about self-worth and sports fandom, which both of us buy into absolutely despite your denial-- otherwise, where's the fun? They don't wear the name of the city on the front of the uniforms for nothing.
My thing with Cubs fans, more accurately, is that they take great pride in rooting for the "loveable losers," and they self-identify as the same. They're trying to pass that off as self-deprecation when really they're mugging for attention. So they need to be constantly reminded that part of that Faustian bargain for the power of egotism is being identified with a loser. If your "brand of suffering" has been worse than everybody else's, than you should be made to suffer.
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