It is way past time to abandon the practice of allowing fans to choose the starting lineup and final player on the MLB All-Star rosters. This year was a perfect example of how major markets dominate fan balloting with Yankees, Mets and Red Sox accounting for half of the starters chosen by fans.
All-Star Non-Pitcher Starters by City (18 total):
New York -- 6 (4 Mets, 2 Yankees)
Boston -- 3
Seattle, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, Detroit, St. Louis -- 1 each
To compound the problem, managers of the previous year's World Series teams get to choose 7 of the reserves. And while Houston manager Phil Garner showed some restraint and chose only a very deserving Lance Berkman from his own team, White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen used the opportunity to select 3 additional White Sox, including the controversial selection of Bobby Jenks as a reliever. The players had already added three White Sox (Jose Contreras, Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye) before Guillen stacked the lineup with his boys. To add insult to injury for small-market teams, the fans selected another White Sox player to fill out the AL lineup.
Today the last two spots were decided by fan voting and Nomar Garciaparra (Los Angeles Dodgers) and A.J. Pierzynski (Chicago White Sox) were selected. Pierzynski mounted a late run thanks to Chicago's South Side and their Punch A.J. campaign. Now while that does have a nice ring to it, and was an irresistible idea for the Cubs' catcher Michael Barrett a few weeks ago, it just doesn't make sense in terms of All-Star voting.
Someone (other than Brian Sabean or Ozzie Guillen) please tell me how in the Hell A.J. Pierzynski is a more deserving All-Star candidate than Minnesota Twins pitching phenom Franicisco Liriano. Sox fans (and Sabean) will no doubt point to his .326 batting average, because everyone loves a high batting average, everyone, that is, other than the millions of people who ignored Joe Mauer's run for .400 to vote for a subpar Jason Varitek.
But to get a fuller picture of who deserves to go, let's take a look at some stats:
'All-Star' A.J. Pierzynski: His .326 batting average is second-best among catchers in the AL. Beyond that he's got nothing. Sixth among AL catchers in OPS, eighth in runs, eighth in RBI, 15th in home runs hit, third in catcher ERA, ninth in caught stealing percentage.
Liriano: Liriano is not yet qualified to rank among league leaders in starting pitching categories. To qualify, he needs to pitch one inning for every game his team has played. He has pitched 81 and 1/3 innings and his team has played 84 games going into today. He is scheduled to start on Saturday, which will be the Twins 86th game. In other words, as long as he pitches 6 innings in the next game, he will officially become a qualified starting pitcher.
For comparison's sake, the median qualified starting pitcher has thrown about 107 innings at this point (3 to 4 more starts than Liriano). That having been said, what if he was qualified (which he will be next week)?
AL Pitching Categories he would lead:
Earned Run Average: 1.99 (Santana 2nd at 2.76)
Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched: 0.97 (Santana 2nd at .99)
Strikeouts per Nine Innings: 10.4 (Kazmir 2nd at 9.77)
Batting Average Against: .203 (Lackey 2nd at .206)
Opponent OBP: .256 (Santana 2nd at .260)
Opponent Slugging Percentage: .292 (Lackey 2nd at .320)
Opponent OPS: .548 (Lackey 2nd at .599)
He would be tied for third with Mike Mussina for Strikeout-to-Walk Ratio at 4.70, behind Schilling (7.79) and Santana (5.70). He would be second in the AL in quality-start percentage behind Mike Mussina and second to Jose Contreras in win percentage. He has already racked up a 9-1 record, just two fewer wins than league leaders Kenny Rogers and Roy Halladay.
He has started 9 games so far and won 8 of them. He picked up his only loss after giving up 3 runs in six innings. In those nine starts, he pitched 59 innings, has a 1.53 ERA, .81 WHIP, 62 strikeouts and 3.88 strikeouts per walk.
If you take out one 3-inning, 5-run relief appearance in late April, his ERA would be 1.44 over 78 innings pitched.
Plus, he isn't an arrogant asshole like Pierzynski.
Someone go ask Giants GM Brian Sabean if he would trade Liriano, Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser for Pierzynski today like he did a few years back. No, ask him if he would trade Liriano today to the White Sox for Pierzynski and Bobby Jenks. I bet I know his answer.
