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Idiot Alert!

ESPN reveals who they think should be the All-Star Starters.

In advance of the All-Star Game selections on Sunday, ESPN.com surveyed 31 of ESPN's top baseball minds to find out which American League players should be starting in the 80th Midsummer Classic on July 14 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

Five of those 31 "top baseball minds" think that Victor Martinez should be the AL's starting catcher.

This entry was posted by SBG on Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm and is filed under WGOM Headlines. It is one of 3098 entries by the author. We are no longer accepting Letters to the Editor on this post.

25 comments to Idiot Alert!

  • ubelmann
    July 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm

    They generally seem to be trying to be too cute with their picks. Aaron Hill at 2B? Whatever. Morneau doesn't really deserve the 1B starting spot, either. (But, but, RBI! RBI!)

    • frightwig
      July 3rd, 2009 at 8:12 pm

      I don't expect Russell Branyan to take all the attention away from the big names who boast better track records, but not one person gave him a vote there?

      • ubelmann
        July 3rd, 2009 at 8:48 pm

        I'm more of a track record guy, but it is a bit surprising that no one on the panel was enough of a first-half guy to list him. Maybe it's just that he's not very high on the RBI lists even with 20 HR.

        • frightwig
          July 3rd, 2009 at 9:17 pm

          Tough luck for Branyan. Aside from Ichiro, lately he's often hitting behind guys like Ronny Cedeno or Yuni Betancourt and the Johnson/Johjima/Burke catching platoon.

          • ubelmann
            July 3rd, 2009 at 9:53 pm

            Yeah, it's mainly unfortunate that the Mariners were hitting so badly for a while that they had no really good options to hit after Ichiro. Beltre's poor hitting (probably somewhat due to his shoulder problems) really hurt a lineup with little punch to begin with.

            • frightwig
              July 3rd, 2009 at 10:32 pm

              Endy Chavez was good in the first month, then came back to earth.

              I respect Wakamatsu, though, for not stubbornly continuing to stick a Chavez or Betancourt or Cedeno in the #2 slot because The Book says the #2 hitter has to be a speedster who can bunt or otherwise "move the runner over." But it will be interesting to see if that's where Gutierrez winds up before long.

              • ubelmann
                July 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 pm

                Yeah, ideally Gutierrez seems like a #5 guy--doesn't get on a lot but can drive runners in when he does make contact--but with the current roster, it would make some sense to go Ichiro-Gutz-Branyan or Ichiro-Gutz-DH-Branyan.

              • frightwig
                July 3rd, 2009 at 11:20 pm

                Gutierrez had a poor .299 obp in April (and his career obp is only .318), but he has been doing much better the past couple months. At the moment, he has his season obp up to .348. Considering his age (26), maybe it's a sign of real progress in his development.

  • New Guy
    July 2nd, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    I just spent ten minutes reading the comments on that article. My god... and I thought Strib commenters were bad. ESPN commenters work on a whole new level of stupid.

  • SBG
    July 2nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    It should be pointed out that Martinez has played 40 games at first base and 39 at catcher. So, he's played quite a bit fewer games at the position than Mauer, who missed a month.

  • brianS
    July 2nd, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    According to Fangraphs, Ben Zobrist is the MVP of the A.L., followed closely by Mauer. Longoria, Bartlett and Youk round out the top five.

    Break up the Rays!!!

    • Moss
      July 2nd, 2009 at 4:30 pm

      They seem to ignore defensive contributions by catchers, so factoring that in would put Mauer in the lead for sure.

      And Elmn Yung is only second-last in all of baseball!!

      • meat
        July 2nd, 2009 at 6:13 pm

        Who's the worst? I don't want to know.

      • ubelmann
        July 2nd, 2009 at 6:57 pm

        Yeah, no one really knows a great way to quantify catching prowess relative to an average defensive catcher, so for those purposes all catchers are considered as average catchers, which gives them a boost over players at other positions but does penalize the best defensive catchers a bit and overvalues the worst defensive catchers a bit.

  • janus
    July 2nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    It must be so easy to be a top baseball mind. Just pick the leaders in (RBI + HR) and then break ties with batting average or errors. I really, really wish home field advantage in the World Series wasn't affected by this type of thinking.

    • SBG
      July 2nd, 2009 at 4:10 pm

      Au contraire. See, it's so easy to get caught up in other numbers that you can forget what's important. RBIs. Wins. Saves. The top minds never waver. They K.I.S.S.

      • janus
        July 2nd, 2009 at 4:28 pm

        They would make my life more fulfilling if they would keep their K.I.S.S.ing confined to John Kruk's posterior region. I would be interested in finding out which one thinks Juan Rivera is one of the top 3 AL outfielders.

  • FirstTimeLongTime
    July 2nd, 2009 at 4:16 pm

    Umm, none of these baseball minds selected Kevin Slowey to be the AL starting pitcher?!? Haven't they heard about a little stats called WINS!