Buster Posey, Josh Hamilton, Derek Jeter and other popular fan faves have been selected as All-Stars and will be heading to Kansas City for the 2012 All-Star game. Josh Hamilton led all players with 11,073,744 votes, surpassing last year’s record of 7.4 million for Jose Bautista. While Hamilton is a solid choice (25 home runs, 73 runs batted in, plus .314 batting average), other deserving players were not selected to start: All Star Lineup
??The biggest omission is Carlos Ruiz, the Phillies catcher who is hitting .356 with 11 home runs and and an on base percentage of 1.000. But instead, fans voted in the more popular Buster Posey, who is hitting .303 with 10 homers and an OBP of .851.
Are you kidding me? Buster’s numbers don’t even come close to the Philadelphia backstop, but somehow he was selected by the fans to start. I’m not saying Buster Posey is a bad choice, just that Carlos Ruiz is far and away a better choice.
The other big mistake is the selection of San Francisco’s Pablo Sandoval at third base. The Panda Bear may be cuddly, but he’s hitting .300 with just 6 homers and 25 RBI. He’s no match for David Wright of the Mets who is baseball’s second-best hitter with a .354 batting average. Plus, Wright has 9 homers and 50 runs batted in (double what Sandoval has), yet somehow fans overlooked that.
And how do you ignore Rookie of the Year candidate Mike Trout of the L.A. Angels, who just hit his 9th home run today: Trout Lands Big Fish
The kid is only 20-years old but he’s hitting .339 (6th best in MLB), with 22 stolen bases (tied for 3rd), but yet he has to sit on the bench behind Curtis Granderson, who is hitting only .246 with 6 stolen bases. Yes Granderson has 23 home runs and 46 RBI, but he also has 91 strikeouts, compared to Trout’s 52. Trout also has a better on base percentage (.938 vs. 857) so you’d have to say that overall, Trout is having a much better year and arguably deserves to start over Granderson.
And Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates had to walk the plank for a player who’s injured. McCutchen is batting .346 with 15 homers, 51 RBI and .993 OBP. But somehow fans favored Matt Kemp of the Dodgers, who hasn’t played in more than a month due to injuries and won’t even be healthy enough to play in the All-Star game.
Another slight? The selection of Mike Napoli of the Rangers as the American League catcher over Joe Mauer of the Twins. Mauer is batting .324 with and OBP of .859. By contrast, Napoli is hitting just .235 with a .773 on base percentage. And Napoli strikes out more than twice as much as Mauer (82 vs. 38).
In theory, giving fans the right to vote in the All-Star started brings democracy to the game and allows the best players to be recognized. In practice, fans don’t really do their homework and end up selecting popular players who recently played in the World Series over players who are more deserving.
