{"id":1938,"date":"2011-07-11T09:53:45","date_gmt":"2011-07-11T13:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1938"},"modified":"2012-11-15T14:16:05","modified_gmt":"2012-11-15T19:16:05","slug":"all-star-game-opinionsnats-all-star-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=1938","title":{"rendered":"All Star Game opinions\/Nats all-star review"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1944\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/clippardtyler_NationalsDailyNewsMeaghan-GayDCist.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1944\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1944\" title=\"clippardtyler_NationalsDailyNewsMeaghan GayDCist.com\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/clippardtyler_NationalsDailyNewsMeaghan-GayDCist.com_-300x139.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"139\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/clippardtyler_NationalsDailyNewsMeaghan-GayDCist.com_-300x139.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/clippardtyler_NationalsDailyNewsMeaghan-GayDCist.com_.jpg 580w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1944\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Your 2011 All-Star Representative. Photo: Meaghan Gay\/dcist.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>My opinions on the all star game are these:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Its ridiculous that it decides home field advantage in the World Series.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Its ridiculous that every team is mandated to have a representative.\u00a0 The NBA all-star game is *actually* an all-star game, and making the team means something.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Selecting middle-relievers so as to have pitchers pitching in their normal spots in a game is faintly ridiculous.\u00a0 Let us not forget, despite the fact that our own 2011 all star representative is the deserving <strong>Tyler Clippard<\/strong>, most middle-relievers are in middle-relief by virtue of being failed starters or not having a complete enough repertoire to feature as a starter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The home-run derby is a great idea, but the rules need to actually award the best hitter the winner.\u00a0 When you remember the 2010 event not for the winner but for the show that <strong>Josh Hamilton<\/strong> put on &#8230; he needs to be the winner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; I do love the futures game.\u00a0 I&#8217;d love to see an NBA-style rookies-vs-2nd year game as well to introduce\/highlight the league&#8217;s younger players.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Roster expansion, dozens of pitching changes, and yanking the starters after 3 innings have completely devalued the game itself.\u00a0 Which is a shame, since it has clearly been surpassed in entertainment value by the all-star games of the NHL (which has freely experimented with USA-vs International teams and Captains choice teams) and MLS (which generally brings over a European powerhouse team for an exciting show).<\/p>\n<p>That being said, lets review the Nationals all stars by year and talk about their selection, whether they were deserving, and who got snubbed each year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2005_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game\"><em><strong>2005<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nationals All-Star representatives: <strong>Livan Hernandez<\/strong>, <strong>Chad Cordero<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Possible Snubs: <strong>Nick Johnson<\/strong>, <strong>John Patterson<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>Narrative: The Nats went into the All Star break surprisingly in first place, having run to a 50-31 record by the halfway point.\u00a0 Should a first place team have gotten more than just two representatives?\u00a0 Perhaps.\u00a0 But the team was filled with non-stars and played far over its head to go 50-31 (as evidenced by the reverse 31-50 record the rest of the way).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2006_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game\">2006<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nationals All-Star representatives: <strong>Alfonso Soriano<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Possible Snubs: <strong>Nick Johnson<\/strong>, <strong>Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Narrative: Soriano made the team as an elected starter, the only time the Nats have had such an honor.\u00a0 Our pitching staff took massive steps backwards and no starter came even close to meriting a spot.\u00a0 Cordero was good but not lights out as he had been in 2005.\u00a0 Soriano&#8217;s 40-40 season is a poster child for &#8220;contract year&#8221; production and he has failed to come close to such production since.\u00a0 The team was poor and getting worse.\u00a0 Johnson had a career year but got overshadowed by bigger, better first basemen in the league.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2007_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game\"><em><strong>2007<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nationals All-Star representatives: <strong>Dmitri Young<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Possible Snubs: <strong>Ryan Zimmerman, Shawn Hill<\/strong> (though I wouldn&#8217;t argue for either)<\/li>\n<li>Narrative: Young gets a deserved all-star appearance en route to comeback player of the year.\u00a0 Zimmerman played a full season but didn&#8217;t dominate.\u00a0 Our rotation featured 6 primary starters, none of whom are still in the league now, though Hill showed flashes of dominance throughout the year.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2008_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game\"><em><strong>2008<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nationals All-Star representatives: <strong>Cristian Guzman<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Possible Snubs: <strong>Jon Rauch<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Narrative: The first of two &#8220;hitting rock-bottom&#8221; seasons for the team; no one really merited selection.\u00a0 Zimmerman was coming off of hamate-bone surgery in November 2007 and the team was more or less awful across the board.\u00a0 Rauch performed ably after Cordero went down with season-ending (and basically career-ending) shoulder surgery.\u00a0\u00a0 Guzman&#8217;s selection a great example of why one-per-team rules don&#8217;t make any sense.\u00a0 Guzman ended up playing far longer than he deserved by virtue of the 15-inning affair.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2009_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game\"><em><strong>2009<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nationals All-Star representatives: <strong>Ryan Zimmerman<\/strong><strong> <\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Possible Snubs: <strong>Adam Dunn<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Narrative: The addition of Dunn and Willingham to the lineup gave Zimmerman the protection he never had, and he produced with his career-best season.\u00a0 His first and deserved all-star appearance en-route to a 33 homer season.\u00a0 Dunn continued his monster homer totals with little all-star recognition.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/2010_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game\"><em><strong>2010<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nationals All-Star representatives: <strong>Matt Capps<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Possible Snubs: <strong>Adam Dunn<\/strong>, <strong>Josh Willingham<\/strong>, <strong>Ryan Zimmerman, Stephen Strasburg<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Narrative: Capps was clearly deserving, having a breakout season as a closer after his off-season non-tender from the Pirates.\u00a0 The 3-4-5 hitters Zimmerman-Dunn-Willingham all had dominant offensive seasons as the team improved markedly from its 103-loss season.\u00a0 But perhaps the surprise non-inclusion was Strasburg, who despite only having a few starts as of the all-star break was already the talk of baseball.\u00a0 I think MLB missed a great PR opportunity to name him to the team to give him the exposure that the rest of the national media expected.\u00a0 But in the end, Capps was a deserving candidate and I can&#8217;t argue that our hitters did anything special enough to merit inclusion.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><strong>2011<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Nationals All-Star representatives:<strong> Tyler Clippard<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Possible Snubs: <strong>Danny Espinosa<\/strong>, <strong>Michael Morse<\/strong>, <strong>Drew Storen<\/strong>, <strong>Jordan Zimmermann<\/strong><\/li>\n<li>Narrative: While Clippard is (arguably) the Nats best and most important reliever, I think Zimmermann was a more rightful choice.\u00a0 He was 10th in the league in ERA at the time of the selections and has put in a series of dominant performances.\u00a0 Meanwhile Espinosa is on pace for a 28homer season and almost a certain Rookie-of-the-Year award, and perhaps both players are just too young to be known around the league.\u00a0 Lastly Morse is certainly known and he merited a spot in the &#8220;last man in&#8221; vote sponsored by MLB (though he fared little chance against popular players in this last-man-in voting).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My opinions on the all star game are these: &#8211; Its ridiculous that it decides home field advantage in the World Series. &#8211; Its ridiculous that every team is mandated to have a representative.\u00a0 The NBA all-star game is *actually* an all-star game, and making the team means something. &#8211; Selecting middle-relievers so as to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[139,130,861,1219,135,585,52,517,865,43,238,580,41,434,136,862,36,864,38,128],"class_list":["post-1938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-dunn","tag-alfonso-soriano","tag-chad-cordero","tag-cristian-guzman","tag-danny-espinosa","tag-dmitri-young","tag-drew-storen","tag-john-patterson","tag-jon-rauch","tag-jordan-zimmermann","tag-josh-hamilton","tag-josh-willingham","tag-livan-hernandez","tag-matt-capps","tag-michael-morse","tag-nick-johnson","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-shawn-hill","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tyler-clippard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1938"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1977,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1938\/revisions\/1977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}