Table of Contents

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

My 2013 All-Star Teams

Presented without much in the way of comments, here are my personal picks for the 2013 All-Star team.  I think the actual team rosters are 34 players or thereabouts, but I'm just going to do a starter and reserve at each position.  For pitchers, I'll do a full 5-man rotation and a 5-man bullpen.  That's 26 players.  And then I'll add in a team representative for any team that doesn't get a guy on the team.

I'm generally making use of past 365-day splits.  I still think that looking at 3-month splits is silly and uninteresting, no matter what Dave Cameron (and pretty much everyone else) says.  In the past I've used projections, but calendar-year splits still allow for me to highlight surprise performances while still getting decentish true-talent measures.  I think it's a good compromise.  On top of that, I also allow my personal biases and whims bump players around...'cause it's my list.

National League

C: Buster Posey, Yadier Molina
1B: Joey Votto, Paul Goldschmidt
2B: Chase Utley (for old times' sake, plus he's deserving), Matt effing Carpenter
3B: David Wright, Chase Headley
SS: Ian Desmond, Everth Cabrera (nod to J-Rol and Troy-Tul)
OF: Carlos Gomez (CF), Andrew McCutcheon (RF), Ryan Braun (LF), with reserves Starling Marte, Bryce Harper, Carlos Gonzelez

Starting Pitchers
Adam Wainwright, Clayton Kershaw, Matt Harvey, Cliff Lee, Homer Bailey (with a nod to Mat Latos)

Relievers
Craig Kimbrel, Aroldis Chapman, Jason Grilli, Mark Melancon, Jonathan Papelbon

Pats on the Head (token team representative that didn't make the real cut)
Jeff Samardzija (CHC)
Giancarlo Stanton (MIA) (nod to Jose Fernandez)

 

American League

C: Joe Mauer, Carlos Santana
1B: Chris Davis, Edwin Encarnacion
2B: Robinson Cano, Dustin Pedroia
3B: Miguel Cabrera, Josh Donaldson (nod to Adrian Beltre)
SS: Jose Reyes, Jhonny Peralta
OF: Mike Trout (CF), Alex Gordon (LF), Ben Zobrist (RF), with reserves Jacoby Ellsbury, Desmond Jennings, Torii Hunter

Starting Pitchers
Max Scherzer, King Felix, Yu Darvish, Justin Verlander, Anibal Sanchez

Relievers
Greg Holland, Jesse Crain, Koji Uehara, Joe Nathan, Grant Balfour

Pats on the Head
Jason Castro (HOU)

Holy crap, Detroit!