Voted Early, Will Vote Often Later
Just finished turning in my first ballot for the 2008 All-Star game. Sure, I'll share it with you, thank you for asking.
American League
C: Joe Mauer. I hadn't realized this, but neither Mauer nor Victor Martinez has homered yet this year. But Mauer still has a .408 OBP, and that's all I need to know.
1B: Justin Morneau. If I would have had to make a prediction before the season, I would have said that of Dr. Morneau and Kevin Youkilis, Youkilis would have the higher OBP and Morneau the greater slugging percentage. How wrong I would have been. All things considered the two are about even and I like both, so I'm going with "who was born in Canada" as my tiebreaker. One could make a case for Jason Giambi here, but I won't.
2B: Ian Kinsler. Kinsler wins out at a weak position over Brian Roberts. Kinsler has a better slugging average and the two have virtually identical OBPs. Roberts is a terrific basestealer, but Kinsler has stolen 15 in 15 tries this year and is 49-55 for his career. Tough to beat that.
3B: Alex Rodriguez. This is the All-STAR game, after all. Who else can you even make a good case for?
SS: Derek Jeter. Remember when this was the centerpiece position in the AL? A-Rod, Jeter, Nomar, Tejada...now it's as empty as it can be. Jeter gets the nod over Michael Young on career achievement, kind of like Oscars voting.
I always vote outfielder by position; one LF, one CF, one RF. I know I don't have to do that, but I'm a stubborn cuss.
LF: Manny Ramirez. I could vote for Milton Bradley, but I don't like Milton Bradley. I could vote for favorite son Carlos Quentin, but I'd like to see him do this for more than two months. I could vote for Hideki Matsui, but...well, Manny is Manny, and that has positive connotations as well as negative ones. He's still a dangerous, dangerous hitter.
CF: Josh Hamilton. I hope that his story just keeps getting better. Not just for his sake, but for mine too, because I love watching him. He gets the vote here over two of my of my other favorite players, B.J. Upton and Ichiro Suzuki. This may be the first time ever I haven't voted for Ichiro.
RF: Magglio Ordonez. Kenny Williams was wrong, Ozzie Guillen was wrong, and I was wrong. If the Sox had it to do all over again I'd still recommend doing just what they did, but I'm still glad to see things work out so well for Mags.
DH: David Ortiz. Coming around after a slow start. Still fun to watch, but I wouldn't count on this lasting much longer.
It's getting late, so I'll finish tomorrow with the lesser league.
American League
C: Joe Mauer. I hadn't realized this, but neither Mauer nor Victor Martinez has homered yet this year. But Mauer still has a .408 OBP, and that's all I need to know.
1B: Justin Morneau. If I would have had to make a prediction before the season, I would have said that of Dr. Morneau and Kevin Youkilis, Youkilis would have the higher OBP and Morneau the greater slugging percentage. How wrong I would have been. All things considered the two are about even and I like both, so I'm going with "who was born in Canada" as my tiebreaker. One could make a case for Jason Giambi here, but I won't.
2B: Ian Kinsler. Kinsler wins out at a weak position over Brian Roberts. Kinsler has a better slugging average and the two have virtually identical OBPs. Roberts is a terrific basestealer, but Kinsler has stolen 15 in 15 tries this year and is 49-55 for his career. Tough to beat that.
3B: Alex Rodriguez. This is the All-STAR game, after all. Who else can you even make a good case for?
SS: Derek Jeter. Remember when this was the centerpiece position in the AL? A-Rod, Jeter, Nomar, Tejada...now it's as empty as it can be. Jeter gets the nod over Michael Young on career achievement, kind of like Oscars voting.
I always vote outfielder by position; one LF, one CF, one RF. I know I don't have to do that, but I'm a stubborn cuss.
LF: Manny Ramirez. I could vote for Milton Bradley, but I don't like Milton Bradley. I could vote for favorite son Carlos Quentin, but I'd like to see him do this for more than two months. I could vote for Hideki Matsui, but...well, Manny is Manny, and that has positive connotations as well as negative ones. He's still a dangerous, dangerous hitter.
CF: Josh Hamilton. I hope that his story just keeps getting better. Not just for his sake, but for mine too, because I love watching him. He gets the vote here over two of my of my other favorite players, B.J. Upton and Ichiro Suzuki. This may be the first time ever I haven't voted for Ichiro.
RF: Magglio Ordonez. Kenny Williams was wrong, Ozzie Guillen was wrong, and I was wrong. If the Sox had it to do all over again I'd still recommend doing just what they did, but I'm still glad to see things work out so well for Mags.
DH: David Ortiz. Coming around after a slow start. Still fun to watch, but I wouldn't count on this lasting much longer.
It's getting late, so I'll finish tomorrow with the lesser league.
Labels: All-Stars, american league
posted by Jim at
8:36 PM
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