AL All-Star Prediction Results

So, let's see how I did, shall we? First, the American League rosters:

Pos	Player, Tm	Did I Have Him?
C	Joe Mauer, MIN	Yes
1B	Kevin Youkilis, BOS	Yes
2B	Dustin Pedroia, BOS	Yes
SS	Derek Jeter, NYY	Yes
3B	Alex Rodriguez, NYY	Yes
OF	Josh Hamilton, TEX	Yes
OF	Manny Ramirez, BOS	Yes
OF	Ichiro Suzuki, SEA	Yes
DH	David Ortiz, BOSº	Yes
P	Justin Duchscherer, OAK	Yes
P	Roy Halladay, TOR	Yes
P	Scott Kazmir, TB	No
P	Cliff Lee, CLE	Yes
P	Joe Nathan, MIN	No
P	Jonathan Papelbon, BOS	Yes
P	Mariano Rivera, NYY	Yes
P	Francisco Rodriguez, LAA	Yes
P	Ervin Santana, LAA	No
P	Joe Saunders, LAA	Yes
P	George Sherrill, BAL	Yes
P	Joakim Soria, KC	Yes
C	Dioner Navarro, TB	No
C	Jason Varitek, BOS	No
1B	Justin Morneau, MIN	Yes
2B	Ian Kinsler, TEX	Yes
SS	Michael Young, TEX	Yes
3B	Joe Crede, CWS	No
3B	Carlos Guillen, DET	No
OF	J.D. Drew, BOS	No
OF	Carlos Quentin, CWS	No
OF	Grady Sizemore, CLE	Yes
DH	Milton Bradley, TEX	Yes

So, I had 23 of 32, or 72% of the players picked correctly. Of the nine I missed, Kazmir, Nathan, Santana, Drew and Quentin are not surprises. I will say that I am surprised to see Crede make it over Evan Longoria, and a little surprised to see Carlos Guillen make it over Magglio Ordonez. I am less surprised about Guillen because Guillen was on the team last year. Then there are the backup catchers. I don't see too much of an issue with Navarro - he and Pierzynski had similar stats. But Jason Varitek's selection is a joke. For one, Varitek has not been an All-Star the past two years, so there was no "he was there last year rationale." In looking at the Baseball Prospectus VORP chart for AL catchers, you can see that 21 catchers have seen at least 100 plate appearances in the AL this year. Of those 21, Varitek ranks 18th, with a -2.3 VORP. As in, he has had negative value. As in, you could call up anyone from the Red Sox farm system and he would be more valuable than Varitek. He entered today hitting .219, which may be a record for lowest batting average by an All-Star. Varitek is tied for third among AL catchers in home runs, but is just eighth in AL catchers in RBI. I could continue, but the point is obvious - Varitek was a bad pick and not really a defensible one. The interesting thing about Varitek's pick is that it was a player's pick, not a manager's pick. Let's see how that breaks out for the AL:

Fans: the nine starters
Players: Bradley, Varitek, Drew, Morneau, Kinsler, Young, Crede, Quentin, Sizemore, Halladay, Lee, Kazmir, Saunders, Santana, Rivera, Papelbon, F Rodriguez, Soria
Francona: Guillen, Navarro, Sherrill, Duchscherer and Nathan

So, with Francona's picks, he needed to pick one guy from Oakland, one guy from Oakland, one guy from Baltimore and two others. That essentially makes Navarro and Nathan his only discretionary picks. I can only assume that he felt he needed a third catcher, whether to protect Varitek or just to not overwork the catchers in general. I would take umbrage with that, but some positions were going to have three players I suppose. Nathan is a very solid pick, and one that I almost made.

Another thing to note is that I believe Francona still has one injury pick to make, since Bradley was named to the team by the players.

For the Final Vote, we have the following five guys:

- Jason Giambi
- Evan Longoria
- Brian Roberts
- Jose Guillen
- Jermaine Dye

So, I didn't actually have any of these guys on my Final Vote projection, which is dissapointing. But I did have Longoria and Dye on my actual team, so I get partial credit for that, right? Dye essentially flip-flopped spots with Quentin. Initially, I had Quentin on my team and Dye in the Final Vote, but I thought Dye's numbers plus reputation would trump Quentin's numbers plus fast start. Obviously, I was wrong. I would hope to see Longoria win this vote, but I will go ahead and assume that Giambi will make it, leaving me at 23 of 33 picked correctly. I'll update both lists next week once the Final Vote has finished and injury replacements have been named. All in all, not too shabby!