New York Nine

Sorry for the lack of posting, I haven't had the time/energy/anything worth writing about recently, but I'll do my best to pick up the pace. Anyways I was reading Tom Verducci's list of all-stars for his offcial ballot and while its not bad it inspired me to give my list of all-stars just the starters and the reasoning behind it.



American League



1B. Mark Texiera - I realize that he may look lacking in areas such as batting average, as he only is batting .276 but when you're OPSing over .980 it kind of makes up for it a bit. More importantly, despite his really awful start to the season the raw numbers don't show precisely how utterly dominant this guy has been since then, as someone who's seen him everyday he's carried the yankees with his bat and at least as importantly with his defense.





2B. Aaron Hill - I'll agree with Verducci here, I knew he was hitting well but 19 home runs with a line of .302/.340/.506 from second base, well that's pretty impressive. Especially when you consider that his career was seriously derailed by a concussion that he didn't get over for a very long time its been remarkable. Indeed, you watch them enough its plain to see that Hill has basically carried this team, and this is down from where he was a few weeks ago.





SS. Jason Bartlett - God help me I pick a freaking Tampa bay Ray over my man Derek Jeter and I almost did pick him over Bartlett given that he's missed a good chunk of the season the DL but the guy's numbers are still better, .368/.404/.566 with 17 stolen bases and 6 home runs compared to the Captain's .309/.384/.455 with 19 stolen bases and 9 home runs. To Jeter's credit its still good and an improvement from last year but its hard to argue with those numbers and his stellar numbers. All that said I still want Jeter to win and I'll vote for him because he's a yankee and damnit what would an all-star game be without Jeter?





3B. Evan Longoria - Man I feel like I'm copying Verducci here but you can't argue with Longoria the disussion begins and ends with Evan this year. Sure A-Rod is playing better but he's hardly been all-star caliber its not even worth discussing.





OF - Adam Jones, Nelson Cruz, Jason Bay - a lot of deserving guys for sure but these three stand out for me for various reasons, all having career or breakout years and seem to me to be great overall players


Pitchers - Zach Greinke, Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, Mariano Rivera, Joe Nathan, John Lester, Justin Verlander

I could list more but I won't just two reliever and five starters is adequate, all of these guys have been absolutely lights out all year.


As you can see I suprisingly thought the fans did a decent job with the all-star teams, with some exceptions like Pedroia over Hill who's clearly having a better season, but for the most part the fans will get to see the best of the best.