2004 I Love Baseball All Star Thread: Cast Your Votes

And I like voting for one REAL centerfielder.

AL
1b F.Thomas (Giambi)
2b Boone
ss Tejada
3b A-Rod (Mora)
of Ramirez
of Guerrero
cf Beltran (V.Wells)
c Pudge (Posada)

NL
1b Pujols
2b Kent (Loretta)
ss Renteria (Kaz)
3b Lowell (Rolen)
of Bonds
of Berkman
cf Edmonds
c Piazza

Since I'll likely multi-vote, I may cast a few for the guys in parens.

i dont really blame you for not voting for soriano, his ops away from mini-coors is .596 and he's not fielding all that well. to be honest objectively i think bellhorn's the only choice, but is he even on the ballot? i'm not voting for him either way obviously. (belliard or soriano would prob be my choice at the moment)

Bellhorn, don't make me laugh. He's not even going to be a regular in 2 weeks (tho that's unfair). And Finley (always a fave of mine) just ISN'T better than Edmonds, who will have his usual numbers at year's end.

You guys are still paying too much heed to April/May.

The next 3 NL outfielders: Abreu, Giles, Finley.

i hate your reasoning on pudge over posada unless he's a personal fave of yours.

finley plays in a hitter's park so he probably really hasn't been more valuable than edmonds overall.

Pudge is better. He's statistically close to Posada the last year and a half, and is a greater lifetime player. Even when Joe Sheehan (a Yankee fan) of BP gave his ballot last week, he said of his Posada choice, "This feels like a homer pick." And if you went solely by 2003-4, Posada should be second to Javy Lopez.

2004 VORP

Finley 21.0
Edmonds 19.0

wtf??? posada's recently gone into a slump, but he'd been one of the top 3 offensive players in the league as a catcher. he's still top 5 in OBP and SLG. pudge is, i dunno, somewhere in the 20s. it's recently gotten a lot closer, but it's still not close.

"pudge is better."

do you honestly believe that? he hasn't had a better season for 4 years now. i bet he won't have a better season this year either.

Equiv Avg Equiv Runs VORP CS% Range

Posada .331 34.8 21.8 .353 6.57
Pudge .317 38.4 25.7 .385 7.30

it's still not close enough to warrant selecting pudge over posada on an objective basis - and you're picking those numbers after a major hot streak by pudge and a major slump by posada.

pudge's eqr is higher because he's played in more games, but you made that pick a week ago when the diff in eqa must've been 20-30 points. posada was at something like .295/.440/.605 not long ago. he's still hitting for considerably more power and getting on base considerably more - we'll see, but i don't think he's playing much over his head right now. pudge has never batted .349 over a season, not even in arlington - and he's not hitting for much power or walking, either. if his BA slips to a career average .306 and his walk and power rates still the same, he'll be sitting at .306/.345/.469. posada's a much better bet to sustain his success to date.

i don't quite understand how the eqa diff isn't a lot higher, not that 14 points isn't significant. as long as both guys are playing regularly i don't think "playing time" metrics (like eqr or vorp) should be given much heed for all-star selections, although it's obviously important for the MVP award.

so pick pudge if you want, but pls admit your particular biases are coloring that selection. jorge's better.

You do concede, at this moment, Pudge is a HOFer and Jorge is likely not? Similarly, there are too many good candidates ahead of Griffey in NL OF, but I can understand why his apparent renaissance has gotten him votes.

as for javy: i'd think you'd make an exception for this "last year and a half" thing in the case of obvious fluke seasons, if rewarding actual talent levels is the idea.

Guillen is putting up numbers unlike he ever has (Comerica-inflated, yes?). Baseball history really begins in April 2004 for you?

home: .722 OPS
away: 1.172 OPS

april: .840 OPS
may: 1.015 OPS
june to date: .948 OPS

tejada

home: .897 OPS
away: .772 OPS

april: .827 OPS
may: .896 OPS
june2d: .607 OPS

in addition, tejada has a pathetic .600 OPS w/ RISP.

fielding is a wash.

does anyone have park factors for camden yards and comerica? seems like neither of them are hitter's parks based on this: http://www.battersbox.ca/archives/00001050.shtml

guillen isn't likely to get many votes, and nearly all of them will be performance-related, while tejada will get some based on name only. and guillen has consistently outperformed tejada so far in 2004, and it's the 2004 all-star game we're voting for, so i can't see how voting guillen over tejada is a crime.

doc, i agree that judging whether or not a guy is playing over his head is important, and guillen undoubtedly is, but he's also trouncing everyone else in the AL right now, and i feel sorry for him cuz no one really cares. let me put it this way, i don't think i'd be doing anyone a disservice by voting for him. and if by some miracle he wins, it'll most likely be the sole all-star game of his career, while tejada's had at least one and will presumably have more. (now that i think about it though, tejada's probably been underrepresented himself due to stiff AL competition and his penchant for slumping first halfs and second half tears. so maybe i'll throw in one or two for miggie as well)

NL

1B J. Bagwell
2B j. Kent
SS A. Everett
3B S. Rolen
OF L. Berkman
OF C. Biggio
OF S. Finley

AL

1B C. Delgado
2B A. Soriano
SS M. Young
3B M. Mora
OF V. Guerrero
OF C. Beltran
OF M. Ramirez

NL B. Ausmus
AL I. Rodriguez

I don't really know why I vote for Ausmus. A combination of ignorance and homerism, I'm sure.

AL:
First Base: D. Ortiz, BOS (write-in)
Second Base: A. Soriano, TEX
Third Base: H. Blalock, TEX
Shortstop: M. Tejada, BAL
Catcher: V. Martinez, CLE
Outfielder: C. Beltran, KC
Outfielder: V. Guerrero, ANA
Outfielder: M. Ramirez, BOS

NL:
First Base: A. Pujols, STL
Second Base: J. Kent, HOU
Third Base: M. Lowell, FLA
Shortstop: J. Wilson, PIT
Catcher: J. Estrada, ATL
Outfielder: K. Griffey, Jr., CIN
Outfielder: L. Berkman, HOU
Outfielder: B. Bonds, SF

VORP: ringer Piazza 25.9, Estrada 23.1, LoDuca 20.0, Barrett 18.2. If you give weight to last year, Kendall (13.5 in '04) enters the picture -- he's also caught about 150 innings more than anyone else the last year and a half.

Anyone want to get on my jock re: picking Martinez over Posada?

Piazza drops two fingers for the curve and Clemens nods in agreement. Clemens then grooves a 95 mph fastball that catches Piazza square in the sternum. Piazza charges the mound. Kent and Berkman run in from their positions while the rest of the players stand dumbfounded.

AL
1B F Thomas
2B A Soriano
3B M Mora
SS M Young
C I Rodriguez
RF V Guerrero
LF M Ramirez
CF C Beltran

NL

1B A Pujols
2B J Kent
3B S Rolen
SS J Wilson
C M Piazza
LF B Bonds
RF B Abreu
CF S Finley

you guys are nuts, though. but thanks, i'm not going to feel the slightest twinge of guilt for voting for guys like matsui and jeter now. (really, it's a factor i'd never considered but the bias yankees fans have for their players should more than be countered by the at-least equal bias EVERYONE ELSE has against them)

ps i can't get my head around all the sori-love

pps melvin mora ugh

And PLEASE name a more worthy 2Ber, because my Soriano pick was a "shit, there's no one else better, is there"? EXCEPT FOR JUAN URIBE (he just realizes).

ok maybe not. yeah, uribe is cooking, how did i not realize he had a .914 OPS until just now even though i KNOW i looked up his stats when i was looking for viable alternatives to soriano?

Boone, of course... 7-for-20 this week, a mere 48 points behind Sori in OPS, figures to equal him at year's end.

What yer overlooking, Gear, is the flukish nobodies DON'T WIN THE BALLOTING. Last one I recall is write-in Steve Garvey in 1974, and we know where that led -- the most overrated player of his era.

Like I said, so many of the positions are already foregone conclusions it's time for strategic voting. e.g., A-Rod and Rolen have it wrapped up, it feels just to bump up Mora and Lowell to runnerup. And Bonds doesn't need any more of my votes, so I'm voting Berkman-Abreu-Edmonds to get Sammy the hell outta there.

The ASG and HOF don't mean shit really, but look how any "who deserves" topic gets the love...

Figuring out "how to win ballgames" is kind of a waste of time to me. I'm not a player, coach or in any way involved with a professional baseball team at a decision-making level. I don't think anyone else at ILB is either.

My only problem with the whole SABR-nerd phenomenon remains the aura of elitism about it, as you've illustrated. "My way of enjoying the game is the right way, the One True Path, yours sucks."

(Oh, and my seat-of-the-pants/"When It Was A Game"-fucking-rules response to SABR-disciple superiority would be: "You've turned an occasionally beautiful, poetic, mythological and mystical game into a calculus class, fuck a bunch of that.")

I'd just like to say, for the record, that I can swing & miss with the best of 'em (amateurs). Unfortunately, my pops thought that being big-boned from the waist down = nascent power hitter, when what it really meant = I NEED PLEATS.

I'd also like to note the subtext in Milo's "how to win ballgames" comments - that is, "only professionals shd be concerned with how to win ballgames", which is the same sort of (IN MY OPINION) floofy hoohah that taints all "why do you music critics bother to write about music?" discussions on ILM.

But, as noted before, there's plenty of room for stat whores and fuddy-duddy luddites here, and there ain't no need to fuck washing hats over it.

I don't even know anymore. http://i.imdb.com/Photos/CMSIcons/emoticons/basic2/sigh.gif

Of course there's room for both - I took a potshot at one segment because a potshot was taken at another. (also: I'm in second place in a league that will pay ~$1200 for first, this is inherently less of a waste of time for me than calculating win shares.)

I respect the concept of the new(er) stats and way of looking at them, but I'll never consider them to be the most important factor in how I look at baseball. There are too many variables that no mathematical formula can ever account for.

ILM analogy time again, and this is just random thoughts - sometimes stat-geekery reminds me of people claim there's a specific formula or necessary quality to 'good' music, singer has to have a great voice, three power chords aren't enough, etc.. That focuses on one aspect, which can be great and enlightening and fun, but excludes all the other things that people love about music. I'll take the solo from "Boredom" over the guy who knows all his scales any day of the week, y'know?

I AM a member; I said I'm not a sabermetrician -- unless being a consumer of the info counts. I touched no math in college, and was happy.

Again, there are arguments on meaningful issues all the time *within* SABR. And a huge portion of the membership, me included, blanch at the mention of a regression analysis.

And of course I'm not thinking about VORP all the time.

as i've said before, my intro to baseball more or less WAS statistics (sad as it is to say), so they are and always have been the most important factor in how i look at the game. but it's not just that: as a fan, the most important thing my team can do for me is win games - in general, i don't care how - and that's the case with most fans, so that's what these 100M dollar franchises are built to do. that's what the players are paid to do: you can talk about entertainment value and all that, but the bottom line is they're out there to win, because that's what people want and that's what makes people come. so understanding the hows and the whys of winning, and valuing it very highly, as it's ultimately the goal of (excuse me as i generalize) everyone involved - players, teams, and fans alike - is vastly important. and that, of course, is what sabermetrics is all about.

[spoken like a true yankee fan etc]

(correct me if i'm wrong milo, but you don't follow any specific team, right? that might explain the difference in perception here)

I'd take him this year
over all your fancy boys,
breaking out like zits

Winning is low on my list of reasons (never a very competitive person when it came to things I wasn't directly involved in).

My introduction to baseball was half historical - playing dice-based games of my own making, reading the old Baseball Encyclopedias, Field of Dreams, etc. - and playing rotisserie.

NL
1B T. Helton, COL
2B J. Kent, HOU
3B S. Rolen, STL
SS J. Wilson, PIT
C J. Kendall, PIT
OF L. Berkman, HOU
OF B. Bonds, SF
OF C. Wilson, PIT

*Stop Jeter (with Nomar)

*Stop Adam Everett (with Renteria)

I really can't quibble with Sheffield, God knows he's a better starting OF choice than Damon.

Godzilla and Ichiro vault over Sheffield ... late precincts from overseas.

Oh, don't worry. I just voted and Everett should be back on top.

If Renteria did win by 6, it would literally be the only election I've ever personally decided.