All-Star Acquisitions

I watched Marquis' 86 pitch dimantling of the best team in baseball a few days ago. It's funny really puts into presepective just how bad the Cubs offseason was. They traded DeRosa for pretty mmuch nothing then he gets the Indians a much betetr return. They trade All-star Marquis to the Rockies for a guy they released like a week later as they continue to have SP problems and they sign Milton Bradley to a 3 year deal over the likes of Dunn and Abreu and he has just been awful.

That's bad no matter how oyu look at it.

"as they continue to have SP problems"

Um the cubs have the #6 ERA in all of baseball. And are top 5 for starting pitching ERA. Not quite sure outside of Rich Harden whos been a "problem". Id rather have Randy Wells who makes nothing instead of Marquis for $10 million. But thats just my opinion.

And sorry to keep going but they have the most Quality Starts in all of baseball. Why Hendry Why!!!! Why trade Marquis!!!!

The Edwin Jackson trade has looked horrible for the Rays. Mark Texiera has had a good season, but i must say Justin Morneau should start 1B. Theres no doubt about that. Aaron Hill should be starting over Pedroia. Hamilton shouldnt be in it. Bartlett should have started but he was injured for a while.Ryan Howard shouldnt be in the game. Lots of things are wrong this year.

All Star voting really showed just how many Yankees and Red Sox fans there are. I mean, Youkilis shouldn't have had 3 million votes. And neither Teixeira or Youk should be starting over Morneau..

Guys from lower markets who should be starting arent.

"he Tigers were robbed on the Edgar Renteria trade, giving up one of the five best young pitchers and a key piece of the Nate McClouth trade and then they take the Rays getting an All-Star for a bench rider."

Waay too early to tell on Joyce/Jackson.

Jackson could be having a career year, since he's never put up numbers this good. Joyce is still really young.

Can someone please explain how Ben Zobrist isn't starting?

Tampa still has one of the smaller fan bases as why, Zobrist deserves the nod though. I was thinking about something, analysts always talk about how the fans make bad choices and granted sometimes we do because we vote for the likeable or hometown guy *cough cough, Yadier Molina, cough cough*, but the players make bad choices also. Someone make a case for Orlando Hudson over Chase Utley.

On Zobrist not starting:

"Because he doesnt play in Boston or New York."

Gotta love that coming from a Cubbies fan. LoL.

It'd be nice if there was a committee that actually understood baseball stats (FIP, BABIP, etc.) that could select the AS teams. Most fans either look at the name or just the BA, and in pitchers cases, the wins (Wins - the most useless stat to judge a pitcher).

Hell Damon was more deserving than Hamilton..

"Gotta love that coming from a Cubbies fan. LoL."

Cubs have one starter. And thats only because they have to. After Soriano slowed down (which seems like $100 million ago) he stopped getting votes. While the cubs had 8 players on the roster last year, all except Kosuke can be justified. And Kosuke was more the overseas vote.

Yeah Hamilton is horrible, but at least since he is on the team we get to possibly see him in the derby.

I might be classified as a "fan", but I think this has gone waaaay too far with fan voting. I'd like to see kind of a reverse than what is done now; the players/managers/coaches all vote on the starters. However, the fan vote determines the bench, after the fact. I got enough proof when looking at the loony MLB.com boards. Outdated stats like BA and RBI were everywhere, not to mention the number of votes for people like Yadier Molina. I highly respect Cardinal fans, but, geez. That's pathetic. Finally, the far-too-large number of Yankees and Red Sox getting votes, because, they are, well, Yankees and Red Sox. I like Pedroia, since he's small like myself. His numbers, however, ARE NOT all-star worthy. If he played for, say, the White Sox, there's no way he'd get in. I think everyone shares the same view about "Making the All-Star Game count", so I won't get into that.

I want to say this NOW. Nothing against small market teams; in fact the team I respect the most is small market; the A's. I LOATHE the "one player from every team" rule. This is dumb! It blocks players who should be in the game at home.

Wakefield, nothing against him as a person, is not worthy. I live in the New England (Red Sox) market. The RSN, NESN, believed Wakefield should have been STARTING the All-Star game. I don't feel NESN is that much of a homer station for baseball, but this is absurd. Can we tell these people to get with the program? They're getting paid around the major-league minimum, where I could do better job; it's infurating. I'm camera-friendly, too. For a station owned by the Red Sox, who have BILL JAMES at their disposal, I feel like I'm still watching a telecast of the 90's. The most advanced stat I've heard there is OPS, once. On the actual telecast, it's only BA/HR/RBI. OBP is shown, but never, ever mentioned. Bill James knows, because he's told me so, an RBI beats a walk anyday, in terms of value of the stat.

Let's look at the pitchers melonis picked, all manager picked

Marquis- a ho-hum 4.19 FIP, and a ERA+ of 117, where the recently DFA'd Matt Herges has better numbers on both stats.

Fuentes, while not horrible, is not all-star worthy. If he got voted this year, he most certainly should have been last year, with a FORTY point decrease in ERA+, and up a run in FIP this year.

Wakefield- His BABIP is up 40 points (.247 to .287), but his FIP is down 4/10 of a point (4.84 to 4.34). A player with a FIP of over 4 should not be playing in the ASG. Finally, his ERA+ is a very ordinary 108.

Well, maybe the managers fon't know what they are doing. Let's have the sabermetric tables vote! That's my opinion.

"Why doesn't anyone give credit to edwin jackson to say he may be proven"

Two words: Fausto Carmona. I could probably name a dozen or so guys who got it together for just a year then no longer had it. Yes, Jackson is looking like he's reach full potential. But no, this doesn't mean we can call him a proven pitcher yet.

"The RSN, NESN, believed Wakefield should have been STARTING the All-Star game."

They recently said this? Or in the middle of May when he was pretty much second to Greinke in the AL? Don't get me wrong... I'm a Sox fan and I certainly don't believe Wake is a better choice than many other possibilities out there. But I honestly think Maddon chose Wakefield more as a tip of the hat kinda thing. He's a manager who respects workmanship.

Another example is Armando Gallaraga. Great year last year, this year not so much.

Raul wins, but i have a feeling he is not going to be able to feast off nl east pitching for much longer