What the MLB All-Star Rosters should look like

By Rick Morris

The predictable post-Mitchell Report swing in MLB towards pitching and away from powerful offense -- which we at FantasyDrafthelp.com have also long been saying would happen due to testing for amphetamines -- has led to the composition of fairly mediocre All-Star rosters, especially in terms of hitters. While I agree with my FDH and SportsTalkNetwork.com colleague Tony Mazur that it will be exciting to see the deserving new faces, the legitimate stars of tomorrow, debuting at the game (i.e. Hanley Ramirez, Geovany Soto, Ryan Braun), there are some frauds who will be participating in the game as well (i.e. the products of ballot-stuffing from the Land of the Rising Sun, Ichiro and Fukodome). What I've done is to break down the rosters, position-by-position, with a notation of who made the team, who should have made the team within the confines that existed in terms of who was voted on to the team (honoring the infantile rule that each team must be represented with at least one player) and who should have made the team in a perfect world (with teams built from scratch, no fan voting, and no rule that stipulated one player from each team must be on the roster). Away we go:

American League Catcher
Who made it: Joe Mauer (starter), Dioner Navarro, Jason Varitek
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Mauer, Navarro
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Mauer (starter), Navarro. This is one of the worst crops ever in terms of American League catchers, and that's saying quite a mouthful when you consider some of the putrid groups of recent years. You could make a decent argument for A.J. Pierzynski, but in a year where nobody behind the plate in the Junior Circuit is showing any power whatsoever, go with the players who are at least hitting for average. Varitek is a flat-out joke selection.

National League Catcher
Who made it: Geovany Soto (starter), Russell Martin, Brian McCann
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Soto, McCann, Mike Napoli
Who should have made it in a perfect world: McCann (starter), Soso, Napoli. I absolutely love Martin as a player, but I can't go with my bias here given what Napoli has achieved given his opportunities this year. I would give McCann the nod ever so slightly over Soto as a starter, although their stats are very close and either one is infinitely ahead of the slappys from the AL.

American League First Base
Who made it: Kevin Youkilis (starter), Justin Morneau
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Youkilis, Morneau
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Morneau (starter), Youkilis. Other than the order of who is starting and who is backing up being screwed up, I can't find much to argue with here.

National League First Base
Who made it: Lance Berkman (starter), Adrian Gonzalez, Albert Pujols
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Berkman, Gonzalez, Pujols
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Berkman (starter), Gonzalez, Pujols. There is nothing to argue with in the final results here.

American League Second Base
Who made it: Dustin Pedroia (starter), Ian Kinsler
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Pedroia, Kinsler
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Kinsler (starter), Pedroia. While Pedroia should make the team by default in a horrible year for AL second basemen, he is still far too slaptastic to be the starter.

National League Second Base
Who made it: Chase Utley (starter), Dan Uggla
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Utley, Uggla
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Utley (starter), Uggla. Again, everything worked out just fine here.

American League Shortstop
Who made it: Derek Jeter (starter), Michael Young
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Jeter, Young
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Young (starter), Jeter. As with Pedroia, Jeter was a joke of a starter who made it only by the ballot-stuffing of his big-market fans. But with a weak, pathetic crop of AL shortstops, Jeter still makes the cut for the team. What a garbage year overall for the American League!

National League Shortstop
Who made it: Hanley Ramirez (starter), Miguel Tejada, Cristian Guzman
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Ramirez, Jose Reyes
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Ramirez (starter), Reyes. Ramirez is the only obvious choice for the team, with Tejada making it by gravy-training a hot start and Guzman getting the Obligatory Washington National Pity Designation. Reyes is a marginal choice, but so is everybody else.

American League Third Base
Who made it: Alex Rodriguez (starter), Joe Crede, Carlos Guillen
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Rodriguez, Crede
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Rodriguez (starter), Crede. A-Rod is an obvious choice and Crede is the least marginal of several possibilities. The American League doesn't deserve two backups at third base.

National League Third Base
Who made it: Chipper Jones (starter), Aramis Ramirez, David Wright (replacement for Alfonso Soriano)
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Jones, Ramirez
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Jones (starter), Ramirez. As with Russell Martin, Wright is a player I really like, but I can't make a case for him over many other worthy backups. It's too bad that Wright and some others couldn't suit up for the AL, with all of their bad-but-necessary picks!

American League Outfield
Who made it: Josh Hamilton (starter), Ichiro (starter), Manny Ramirez (starter), J.D. Drew, Carlos Quentin, Grady Sizemore
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Hamilton, Ichiro, Ramirez, Quentin, Sizemore, Jermaine Dye, Vladimir Guerrero, Nick Markakis
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Hamilton (starter), Quentin (starter), Sizemore (starter), Dye, Ramirez, Drew, Guerrero, Markakis, Magglio Ordonez. Outfield is the only real source of depth, such as it is, for American League hitters this year, so I would add some extras here. Manny got voted in purely on reputation and Ichiro shouldn't even be sniffing the roster this year.

National League Outfield
Who made it: Ryan Braun (starter), Matt Holliday (starter), Kosuke Fukodome (starter), Corey Hart, Ryan Ludwick, Nate McLouth
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Braun, Holliday, Fukodome, Pat Burrell, Ryan Ludwick, Rick Ankiel, Nate McLouth, Carlos Lee
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Braun (starter), Holliday (starter), Lee (starter), Burrell (starter at DH), Ankiel, McLouth, Luckwick, Hart, Jason Bay. Fukodome, like Ichiro, doesn't deserve a spot on the roster. Lee was completely overlooked for the kind of year he is having. McLouth is probably a fraud, inasmuch as he is always an early-season tease, but he has to make the team with the kind of numbers he posted.

American League DH
Who made it: David Ortiz (starter), Milton Bradley
Who should have made it given the fan balloting: Ortiz, Aubrey Huff
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Huff, Bradley. David Ortiz was the biggest make-it-on-name-recognition-and-reputation fraud of the entire event this year.

American League Pitchers
Who made it: Justin Duchscherer, Roy Halladay, Scott Kazmir, Cliff Lee, Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon, Mariano Rivera, Francisco Rodriguez, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, George Sherrill, Joakim Soria
Who should have made it given the one-player-per-team mandate: Duchscherer, Halladay, Kazmir, Lee, Nathan, Papelbon, Rivera, Rodriguez, Soria, John Danks, Felix Hernandez, B.J. Ryan
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Duchscherer (starter), Halladay, Kazmir, Lee, Nathan, Papelbon, Rivera, Rodriguez, Soria, Danks, Hernandez, John Lackey. If the AL could send less unworthy hitters and 20 pitchers, then everyone would get what they deserve!

National League Pitchers
Who made it: Dan Haren, Aaron Cook, Ryan Dempster, Brad Lidge, Tim Lincecum, Ben Sheets, Edinson Volquez, Billy Wagner, Brandon Webb, Brian Wilson, Kerry Wood, Carlos Zambrano
Who should have made it given the one-player-per-team mandate: Haren, Lidge, Lincecum, Sheets, Volquez, Webb, Zambrano, Johan Santana, Cole Hamels, Jake Peavy, Jon Rauch, Mr. Saito
Who should have made it in a perfect world: Haren (starter), Lidge, Lincecum, Sheets, Volquez, Webb, Zambrano, Santana, Hamels, Peavy, Saito, Wagner. Rauch is a much more deserving National than Guzman. Looking at the AL and NL rosters, the wrong Santana will be suiting up Tuesday night. I would bump some of the closers so as not to unfairly squeeze out Hamels and Peavy. Ultimately, I find more fault with the selection for NL pitcher than I do anywhere else.