Get to know your All-Stars
Baseball’s best come from 22 states and seven countries
The voters have spoken, loud and clear. The baseball voters, that is. The ones who elected an exciting, young American League lineup for Tuesday’s All-Star Game. For the National League they chose a lineup that might also be exciting, but it clearly is not young. There can be little doubt what the fans think of the two leagues.
The American League’s starting lineup will include 22-year-old shortstop Carlos Correa, 24-yearold third baseman Jose Ramirez and 25-year-old outfielder Aaron Judge. All three will be playing in their first All-Star Game. Three other AL starters — first baseman Justin Smoak (30), outfielder George Springer (27) and designated hitter Corey Dickerson (28) — may not be young in baseball years, but they will also be playing in their first All-Star game. However, even those three are young when they are compared to most of the National League lineup.
The National League will start a pair of 32-year-old players — first baseman Ryan Zimmerman and second baseman Daniel Murphy in the infield along with 31year old shortstop Zack Cozart. Outfielder Charlie Blackmon and catcher Buster Posey both are 30. Cozart, incidentally, is the only NL starter who will be playing in his first All-Star Game.
How will all this impact the game? Probably not at all. On Tuesday night all of these players will probably play long enough to get two at bats, then step aside and allow the reserves to take their turn. Which league wins the game no longer seems to be very important. The All-Star Game has
become more of a show than it is an athletic contest.
The greatest intrigue nowadays seems to focus on the player selection. Which players are indeed All-Stars? Who are the best players in the game today?
Altogether 62 players (starters, reserves and pitchers) were named AllStars last Sunday night. They probably aren’t exactly the 62 best players in the game today, but it’s a pretty good list. Analyzing this list tells us something about the current state of the sport.
Forty-two players are American, nine come from the Dominican Republic, four from Venezuela, two from Puerto Rico, two from Curacao, and one each from Japan, Canada and Cuba. If you’re keeping score, that’s seven countries plus Puerto Rico.
The 42 Americans come from 22 states. Florida leads the way with eight selections, followed by California with five stars and Texas with four. No surprises there. What might be surprising is that the next state on the list is Tennessee, which has supplied three players (Cozart, outfielder Mookie Betts and pitcher Robbie Ray) to this year’s game.
Slightly more than half of the American players — 24 to be exact — played college baseball at a fouryear college and no two of them played at the same college. Five played in the Southeastern Conference and five in the Atlantic Coast Conference. No other conference can claim more than two.
The All-Star selections suggest that baseball’s scouts are much more adept today than those of a generation ago. Of the 44 All-Stars who entered professional baseball through the draft, 21 were chosen in the first round and eight more on the second round. Three of the players (Correa, outfielder Bryce Harper and pitcher Stephen Strasburg) were chosen number one overall and eight others were among the top 10 selections.
The lowest selection to make the game was Murphy, who somehow lasted until the 13th round in the 2006 draft. Ray was drafted in the 12th round in 2010.
The Astros scouts get the best grades since five of this year’s All-Stars were originally signed by Houston. The Yankees, Mets, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Marlins and Nationals were the original employers of four each. On the flip side, the Phillies, Pirates, Blue Jays, Athletics and Mariners did not sign any of the 62 players chosen as All-Stars.
By the way, 36 of the All-Stars — more than half — are still with the organization that signed them originally.
The youngest player chosen is 21-year-old Cody Bellinger, an outfielder-first baseman. The oldest will be designated hitter Nelson Cruz, who just turned 37. The most experienced is catcher Yadier Molina, who will be in his eighth AllStar Game, one more than pitcher Clayton Kershaw.
Hall of Fame voter Jay Dunn has written baseball for Digital First Media for 49 years. Contact him at jaydunn8@aol.com