My All-Star Team: American League Hitters

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game in baseball is probably not a game that should count and sometimes the fans seem to get the wrong players elected--but then again, that doesn't make it different than any other form of democracy. And sometimes, people certainly get picked for the wrong reasons as The Common Man showed  last week. In the end, the Mid-Summer Classic is all about being an exhibition of baseball's best players. So I'm going to take only the best players, rule-about-taking-one-player-per-team be damned! Here's my list of the best candidates for the All-Star Game starting with the AL guys who will be swinging the bat (all stats min 100 PAs):

Catcher: Jorge Posada, Victor Martinez, and Joe Mauer. Mauer is the leading vote getter for all of Major League Baseball so he's in without a doubt. But if you were picking a player on pure stats, this wouldn't be the year to take Mauer at first glance (his numbers perfectly mirror his 2007 output). But when you drill down, Mauer has still had a pretty great season and is worth of an All-Star nod. Although not as adept defensively, Posada and Martinez may beat Mauer with the bat this year. Although he's been battling injuries (and therefore spent quite a bit of time at DH as well as only racked up 171 PAs), Posada leads all the catchers in OPS (slash lines of .287/.398/.538) and wOBA (.406 to Martinez's .363 and Mauer's .356). Martinez leads all catchers with 29 XBH so far this season. Amazingly (considering his lack of speed), one stat that favors Jorge this season is GIDP: Mauer has 14, Martinez 9 and Posada 1. "Counting" stats: Mauer .304 avg, 3 HR, 21 RBI; Martinez .291 avg, 9 HR, 37 RBI; Posada .287 avg, 9 HR, 25 RBI. Honorable Mentions: John Buck (.271/.309/.532, .356 wOBA, 12 HR, 38 RBI) and Mike Napoli (.251/.329/.478, .354 wOBA, 11 HR, 27 RBI). Picture from The Star-Ledger.

Firstbase: Justin Morneau, Miguel Cabrera and Kevin Youkilis. All three players are having monster years and all three are early candidates for MVP. Morneau's numbers are off the charts (almost Mauer like) with a ridiculous slash line of .340/.448/.622 and a wOBA of .452 to go along with 15 HR and 47 RBI. That wOBA is the highest (among all players who have qualified for the batting title) in the Majors. Second is Youk (.440) and third is Cabrera (.437). Mourneau's OPS of 1.070 leads all 1Bs trailed by Cabrera (1.041) and Youkilis (1.026). The WAR numbers tell the difference thus far though. Due to extremely positive fielding numbers, Morneau takes the lead with 4.3, Youkilis is seen about even and Cabrera is marked down for his defense. Cabrera leads in the counting stats while Youkilis has been hitting the tar out of the ball recently for the surging Red Sox. Morneau has the lead and should start but the other two should be named replacements on the team. Counting stats: Morneau .340 avg, 15 HR, 47 RBI; Cabrera .328 avg, 19 HR, 60 RBI; Youkilis .312 avg, 14 HR, 47 RBI. Honorable Mentions: Paul Konerko (.296/.396/.574, 17 HR, 51 RBI, .413 wOBA) and Billy Butler (.330/.383/.491, 7 HR, 37 RBI, .381 wOBA). Picture from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

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Biggest Fantasy Baseball Surprises: Outfielders, DHs and Pitchers

Yesterday we looked at the biggest fantasy baseball surprises in the infield, today we'll look at those that play the outfield, are solely utility, starting pitchers or relief pitchers. All stats and rankings courtesy of Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball. Here we go:

Utility (AKA DH)

Biggest Surprise - Vladamir Guerrero. Former Angels made popular fantasy baseball draft picks from John Lackey to Chone Figgins. But who would have thought that the best former Angel was going to be Vladamir Guerrero. He was ranked the 145th best player coming into this season and is now the second best player in baseball and looking like his MVP form of the past (as well as a sure-fire candidate to go back to Anaheim for the All-Star Game). He's hitting .339 with 29 runs, 12 HR, 42 RBI, and 4 SB.  Two points to make. One is that the weather hasn't really gotten hot so the balls are going to start jumping out even more in Texas this summer. And two, the craziest point about this whole thing is that if the Rangers had completed their trade for Mike Lowell in the off-season, Vlady may be sitting with Jermaine Dye at home still looking for work. Picture from USA Today 

Biggest Disappointment - Pat Burrell. This is pretty bad. Burrell was drafted in a fair amount of leagues for those hoping to get a bounce-back year from the Tampa DH. But he rewarded those people (and the Rays) with a .202 average, 9 runs, 2 HR and 13 RBI in 84 ABs before being released. Ouch. For a small market team such as Tampa, that's gotta hurt.

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