Stephen Strasburg – Not an All-Star Yet!

Washington Nationals phenomena Stephen Strasburg will have to wait another year for his 1^st All-Star appearance. Strasburg was a major topic of debate heading into this weekend. It was a tough decision, and I think rather easy to understand both viewpoints.

The Major League Baseball All-Star game should be respected and its integrity needs to be upheld. All other major sports in the U.S. have All-star games that are nothing more than watered down exhibition games.  The NBA is the worst at putting players on the All-Star team that don’t deserve to be on the team.

Strasburg may be good enough to make the All-Star team, but he hasn’t earned it yet. Yes, we all know he will but the fact of the matter remains that he doesn’t have a body of work to back up what we all believe to be true.  

But we all want to see him! It seems unthinkable we would deny ourselves of the timeless memory of watching Strasburg not only play but start in his rookie season All-Star Game.

The USA Today Daily pitch reported,

The NL staff, as announced Sunday will include Nationals' closer Matt Capps, but not Strasburg.

"He got quite a bit of consideration, I haven't seen the guy pitch live yet," NL manager Charlie Manuel said. "Leave him alone, let him pitch. He's going to be an All-Star for a long time." Read More 

 Jeff Passan of Yahoo!Sports wrote in a July 4^th post, “One can look at the All-Star Game in two ways. 

The first is as a showcase for the fans, which is supported by MLB allowing them to vote the starters. No player drives fan interest today like Strasburg. Bring him on board – or, better yet, allow the fans to vote him in – and watch ratings for the game and interest in it soar.

The second is as a game with real implications: World Series home field. Managers should, then, pick the best players for their teams. Only in Manuel’s world, where Omar Infante deserves an All-Star bid, Arthur Rhodes(notes) andEvan Meek(notes) are better equipped to help the NL win than Strasburg.

Like Manuel said, he’ll make plenty of All-Star teams going forward, and so will …” Read More

Regardless of how Strasburg may feel or what we selfishly may want to see, we are both going to half to wait till next year.

Joe Mauer and the Fifth Annual All-Wiener Team

 I found the July 1^st Yahoo! ROTO ARCADE post by Brand Evans titled Lames: Magic-less Wandy leads 2010 All-Wiener team to be quiet interesting. Mainly because one of the players lucky enough to make the 5^th annual All-Weiner Team was Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer. Ironically, Mauer leads all players in the All-Star voting.

C: Joe Mauer(notes), Min

Overall Rank (Preseason, Current): 13, 170 
"Mauer's lack of muscle, discussed in length two weeks ago, is shocking only to those who stupidly invested a first-round pick in his services. Though the AL's leading All-Star vote getter may disagree, the power redux is very real. His 1.67 GB/FB, decreased success on fastballs and spacious Target Field surroundings will continue to keep his Killebrewian side hidden – and his value behind Miguel Olivo (notes). He's still a keen-eyed hitter who's invaluable in OBP formats, but in conventional circles, he'll be an above average producer, relative to position, in BA, runs and RBI." 

Fearless Forecast (rest of season): 296 at-bats, .316 BA, 6 HR, 36 RBI, 39 R, 1 SB

Earlier in the fantasy season I was offered a trade – Miguel Cabrera and Zach Grienke for Joe Mauer and Stephen Strasburg. I turned the offer away immediately, why? Two Reasons.

The first is really simple, Miguel Cabrera! Right now, no one in Major League Baseball swings a better bat than Miguel Cabrera.  


During the offseason he has made tremendous strides towards bettering himself and has straightened out all issues in his personal life that may have bothered him in the past. Simply put, he is a man on a mission, an inspired player with scary talent = clutch production and his 2010 stats don’t lie. 


Cabrera also has a total of 61 RUNS compared to Mauer’s 44 RUNS.

I have Morneau batting in a utility slot for me and the idea of that Twin Tandem sounded too good to be true.  If at any point I would have seen a drop in Morneau’s production which could be attributed to an increase in Mauer’s production who bats in front of Morneau, I would have considered it. Morneau’s numbers are outstanding and show no signs of slowing down. 


Mauer never seemed to get started this season. 

The dynamics of the Twins batting lineup and the types of hits Mauer’s getting are simply moving the runners and not scoring them.  Justin Morneau fills a utility slot on my team and though he drives in a lot of base runners, he wasn’t driving in and couldn’t drive Mauer in enough for me to consider breaking up my Brennan Boesch-Miguel Cabrera Tiger Tandem.