Podsednik, Oswalt are All-Stars (i.e. no Jeter)
 

http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/a...=.jsp&c_id=mlb

This is like having ice cream without poison.

That means Hoffman is not in? :(

Woot, way to go Roy!

Now if only Ensberg can get in as an injury sub I'll be truly happy.

I looked at that N.L. roster, and I didn't see Barry Bonds anywhere on the list. What the hell? Just because he hasn''t played doesn't mean he isn't the best player!!

lol

I voted for Oswalt and Carl Crawford 20 times.

No Jeter. Ha!

Same here, but I think I voted closer to 50 times... :)

voted for hoffman and pods (WOOHOO!!) about 50 times

This thread sure isn't evidence of an extremely ridiculous system.

I think it's more ridiculous that MLB buried the online ballots and pimped the $0.99/ballot phone voting. Yeah, brilliant. Institute a system that requires fans to vote, then charge them for the privilege.

Buried the online ballots? I decided to check it out on a whim and there was a link in the cover story on the front page of mlb.com. I never even heard about phone voting until you mentioned it.

That might be the difference. When I went to dodgers.com to check on some injuries, there was a link to a story about the final voting. I clicked on the story link, and it talked about how the process worked and had a link that said something like "Click here to vote now," and when I clicked that, it opened another window that had a ton of info on the phone voting, and a miniscule link labeled "More info" that one could click to cast a web ballot. Incredibly obscure.

mlb.com proper may have had a more reasonable system in place.

The thing about the all-star game is that the final results are more or less meaningless. I want to feel like it's life or death stakes. So I guess what I'm saying is that someone's gotta go. Maybe they should secretly infect one of the players with some werewolf virus shit and we have to vote to lynch somebody each night of the all-star break...

Hunter should have beaten out Podsednik, but it's amusing that Jeter was kept out.

Why do people hate Jeter??

Cause his wildly overrated... mostly because of his media market.

If you want to know the value of leadership on a team, look at the Phillies.

Jeter wouldnt make the Phils any better or worse

If you think that, then you either don't know Jeter, don't know the Phillies, or don't know baseball. Even Ed Wade would trade Rollins for Jeter. The Phillies are absolutely lost, there is nobody on the team that steps up, except maybe Chase Utley, but he is basically a rookie.

Thats not what yoiu said though. Jeter's so called intangibles won't get the Phils any closer to the plaoyffs then I would.

Jeter has been a good, maybe even great player, but he most certainly is terribly overrated by the media.

I'm glad he didn't make it first because he's a Yankee, second because the two better SS's this year made it before him (Tejada and Young), third because he's got the same OPS as Bill Hall (!), and fourth because I'm generally against automatic selections based on who the player is, not what he's done through July 1. Scott Rolen has no business being there either, but he got voted in, so what can you do?

You're nuts. Rollins is a better player than Jeter in every way, and 5 years younger. No way they would trade Rollins for Jeter.

Especially if you factor in their salaries. Jeter at $8 million is a good player/leader. Jeter at $19 million is an "only in NY" type of player.

If he's such a great leader, why hasn't he fixed the Yankees yet? He gets credit for the intangibles he brought to their winning teams, where's the criticism now? How much of an effect could he have had before, if he has little effect now? I agree that intangibles are a factor, but most of the time, we seem to find them in hindsight, depending on what's occurred.

The Phillies are definately lacking the character guys. And Rollins is super overrated.

I just like it that all the MLB commercials for the ASG prominently featured Jeter. And the team leader, who's so unselfish as to remain at SS while a dramatically superior player plays to his right, won't make the ASG.

Hopefully someone won't make the trip so Francona can add Travis Hafner over Jeter too.

Given the composition of the AL team, it really would make sense to add Jeter if anyone pulls out. He hasn't had a bad year, so it wouldn't be an embarassment for him to be there. I just like the idea that he's not. But with only 1 backup each at 2B, SS, and 3B, and with 2 1B, 4 OF, and a DH on the bench, adding Hafner is probably not a good move, looking at it strictly from a positional standpoint.

BTW, slightly off topic, but how did Shea Hillenbrand make it at DH over Hafner?

Shea - .299/.358/.440 (.790 OPS), 8 HR, 38 RBI
Hafner - .318/.422/.596 (1.018 OPS), 18 HR, 58 RBI

Is he the only Toronto rep? I don't have the team in front of me.

Dola.

Actually, I assume Halladay made it, so that's not the answer.

Probably because a good chunk of Hafner's production came in the past 3 weeks. It takes awhile for people to notice...

Hafner's biggest day of the past month was July 4th, after the team was chosen. 3 HRs and 6 RBI against the Tigers.

Take that away and he's still vastly superior. I think the answer you're looking for is that even the professional people involved in picking the team don't take it as seriously as they should.

OK, Hafner hit .345 with 8 HR and 29 RBI in June. If most of the All-star votes were made by the players before that, it makes more sense. Still, if you are going to have a vote by the players, why not wait until late June, early July? It's not like the fans where you want to give each fan that attends a shot. There's no reason why ballots could not be handed out in the last week of June to players and collected in the first week of July.

oykib - Shea was hot early, Hafner is hot now, mostly after the team was chosen, thats why. Hafner was hitting .260 with 5-6 HRs in May. It wasn't until June that he started hitting, thats what hurt him. Look at the stats.

Im a Met fans, and I think Jeter is great. I think people outside of NY, who don't see Jeter on a regular-enough basis, misvalue how good he really is. The guy gets a hit in a big spot, 90% of the time. Late in games, he gets on base, men in scoring position, he gets hits....if you don't see him 3-4-5 times a week, you wouldn't know that.

Jeter by far deserves to be in the all-star game and he deserves every penny of his 19 million dollars. He is that good, if you watch him often enough. The reason he can't completely turn around this team, is because one man can't do it all, all of the time. In the Yankees dynasty, Jeter was doing his normal thing but so was Tino and Brosius and Bernie and Sojo and O'Neill. Now, Jeter is doing his normal thing, but nobody else is really stepping up.

Touche

Personally, I think that they should count three things.

1. Foremost should be the current year's production.

2. Next, The work that the player has since the last All-Star Break.

3. Star Power - is the All-Star game. It does need a certain amount of star power. I have no problem with Star Power being a tie-breaker in close situations.

Actually, this year, Jeter is 140th in the AL in hitting with runners on, putting up a robust .212/.341/.348 line.

But, maybe he just does it in clutch situations, like with 2 outs. Nope. 92nd in the AL in 2 out, scoring position: .184/.326/.316.

He does hit well in "close and late" situations - .311/.392/.422. But he's driven in a total of 2 runs in those situations. Maybe he just can't hit with men on base?

Derek Jeter is a good player. He's a good hitter and a sometimes average SS. Let's not make him out to be the second coming. There are better SSs in the AL and they're both going to the All Star Game.

We see him all the time, Sportscenter may as well just change their whole programming agenda to Yanks/RedSox, Lakers, and Danica Patrick. It's leaning that direction anyway.

That's why the fans get to vote for the starters. There are your stars. The bench, filled out by players and managers, should be based on merit. If it's a close call, I understand picking Jeter over Hafner. But otherwise, great year by young guy over decent year by former all-star should win out.

Player A - .308/.395/.446, 145 TB, 10 HR, 66 R, 35 RBI, 10 SB
Player B - .289/.363/.337, 91 TB, 0 HR, 48 R, 17 RBI, 41 SB
Player C - .268/.301/.393, 138 TB, 7 HR, 52 R, 23 RBI, 19 SB

There is no way Player B is a better than player A this year unless you have the world's biggest SB fetish. 31 extra SB (at an 82% overall success rate) cannot offset 54 less TB's. Player B is not an all-star by any measure. Player A (who is 31 years old) is, of course, Jeter. Player B (who is 29 years old - not really a young player) is Pods. Jeter also plays a harder defensive position (even though I've argued here repeatedly that he doesn't play it very well).

Player C is only slightly more interesting. He is Jimmy Rollins. Setting contracts aside, the only possible justification for preferring Rollins over Jeter is age. Offensively, he is just not in the same ballpark and to say, "Rollins is a better player than Jeter in every way" is lunacy. His OBP is embarassing.

I'm no Jeter fan and regularly bash him, but picking Pods in the all-star balloting over him just doesn't make sense. The Jeter-backlash has gone too far when you can't see he is clearly a superior player having a superior season when compared to Pods.

As for Rollins, he has the age advantage, but Jeter is currently a much better offensive player that surely offsets any defensie margin.

Second coming? He's been around for 10+ years....hes came and conquered enough, I think.

Sure I think Young and Tejada belong there....but they've taken up to 5 SS in an allstar game before (2002)....I'm actually surprised SPod made it, his stats are weak.

dola- nice work John Galt, you beat me to it.

You make a good case for Jeter, but let's consider a couple of other things.

1. Jeter has 55 more ABs than Pod. That accounts for some of the Total Bases stat that you tout.

2. Pod is a much better fielder than Jeter. Both SS and CF are critical defensive positions.

But since this was a vote, you could have easily voted for Tori Hunter, Matsui or even Trot Nixon over either Pod or Jeter.

BTW, Pods and Rollins both have a .700 OPS which ties them for 135th in the league (out of 166 qualifiers).

Trot Nixon, funny one.

At the same time, I don't think you've been watching the White Sox, Podsednik has been playing ALOT of LF, not CF. Good try though.

AB's should count for something when the difference is mostly attributable to games played (Pods 71, Jeter 80). And TB's are just one of many differences. Pods is hardly the best fielder and Jeter has improved, but the defensive differences can't offset the enormous offensive ones.

I'm fine with Hunter, Nixon, or Matsui. They are all having better seasons than Jeter. I just find it embarassing that Pods gets the vote when he is having a horrible season. A .700 OPS?!?!?! That's all it takes - this isn't the dead ball era.

edit: looking at NIxon's stats, I'm not sure I would pick him over Jeter, but I could at least understand the argument - with Pods I can't.

There's no reason to argue Jeter over Pods, since Pods was a fan vote. Period.

Whether Jeter deserves to be on the squad is debatable, at best. There are clearly 2 other SS's more deserving. As I said above, the positional imbalance suggests another middle infielder should probably be added, and that would be him. But the fact that he's not on right now is not due to some grave injustice.

Does that change the fact that I'm happy he hasn't made it so far? Hell no.

Huh? Are fan votes immune from criticism or did I miss something?

If Trot Nixon made the all-star as a platoon player, then I'd give up watching baseball.