USA TODAY International Edition
Selections show modern game in constant flux
First- half stats don’t take back seat to popularity
When the National League’s reigning MVP can’t earn an invite to the All- Star Game, even as he’s having a solid season while playing for perhaps the league’s most popular team, you know the winds of change are buffeting Major League Baseball’s summer showcase.
Kris Bryant’s absence from the NL’s All- Star roster — he’s among the five final- vote candidates — represents as big a stunner as the dearth of other Chicago Cubs.
Closer Wade Davis is the only member of the defending World Series champions assured of a spot in Miami next week, and he wasn’t even with the club when it ended the franchise’s 107- year title drought last fall, a few months after sending seven players to the All- Star Game.
The shortage of Cubbies on the All- Star Game roster not only reflects the team’s mediocrity this year but a difference in player selection under a format by which MLB makes the call on the final seven reserves in the NL and the last five in the American League.
Rather than game managers Joe Maddon of the Cubs and Terry Francona of the Cleveland Indians loading up with their own guys, MLB saw fit to reward teams and players who excelled in the first half.
That’s how the Arizona Diamondbacks, represented only by first baseman Paul Goldschmidt last year as they slogged to a fourth- place finish, landed four players this time while putting up the third- best record in baseball.
The same logic applies to the Houston Astros and Indians, both division leaders a bit lacking in glamour, winding up with five players in the Midsummer Classic each, along with the glitzier New York Yankees and Washington Nationals.
Popularity still matters, and it will as long as fans get to vote for the starters. But with rosters reduced from 34 to 32 and MLB having a bigger say, performance in the first three months has taken on added significance.
Gone are the days of the 1980s, when Cal Ripken Jr. began a streak of 19 consecutive All- Star appearances, and the turn of this century, when Derek Jeter made 14 of 17 All- Star Games from 1998 until his 2014 retirement, with two of those absences due to significant first- half injuries. The rise of the launch an
gle: The Statcast- created stat, which measures the ball’s vertical direction leaving the bat, has been at the root of a hitting revolution as batters have discovered the advantages of getting the ball airborne and avoiding grounders.
Practitioners of this approach make up a growing segment of the rosters. They include Nationals second baseman Daniel Mur- phy, Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Cody Bellinger — who has one of the game’s most notable uppercut swings — and even San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey, a recent convert.
But among players who have retooled their swings to add lift, the two who stand out the most among this year’s All- Star crew are AL starter Justin Smoak and fellow first baseman Yonder Alonso. They’re making their first appearance at 30, and each has already surpassed his career high in home runs for a full season.
Less relief: Remember last year when Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost stuffed the AL roster with no less than nine relievers? Well, whatever logic went into that thinking apparently is not operative anymore.
The AL has three relievers in Craig Kimbrel, Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances. That should be plenty to close out any game, provided the starters hold up their end of the bargain.
The new mode has not been adopted by the NL, which is inviting six relievers, including lefty Brad Hand as the required San Diego Padres representative.
Fear the Dodgers: Sure, they have the NL’s best record, but that hardly constitutes a surprise with such a loaded roster. What’s scarier is the Dodgers have sent a rookie to the All- Star Game for each of the last three years, with Bellinger following in the footsteps of Corey Seager last year and Joc Pederson in 2015.
Bellinger, like Seager an MVP candidate as a rookie, has taken the sting off Adrian Gonzalez’s injury absences by leading the NL with 24 home runs to go along with a .956 on- base plus slugging percentage. Bellinger joins Seager, Clayton Kershaw and Jansen as part of the Dodgers contingent headed for Marlins Park.
And there’s more to come from the Dodgers’ heralded farm system, as second baseman Willie Calhoun, pitcher Walker Buehler and outfielder Alex Verdugo are knocking on the door.