Jays vs. Royals: Show Me The Lone Stars

Monday, July 10 2006 @ 08:00 AM EDT

Contributed by: Rob

Not the best 2-2 series split in recent memory. Let's just leave it at that and move on.

Instead, I will channel David Letterman for a moment here:

"Folks, are you like me? Are you watching this, uh, this baseball, wondering which of them All-Stars are the least-deserving of that title, aside from Buddy Biancalana? Mark Redman is one of them, and you may not know this, but he will actually be pitching to Method Man. You know, maybe he does deserve to be an All-Star, because it's just -- it's just too hot for words in Kansas City. Speaking of which, it was so hot in New York yesterday, I saw a squirrel in Central Park -- this is true, I saw a squirrel in the park, and he was trying to cool off his nuts."

Now, if you can tear yourselves away from the forced laughter of Paul Shaffer, I took a look at every team under .400 at the All-Star Break since 2000. Since voting doesn't take the second half of the season into account, I didn't either. Only those teams with a lone All-Star were considered; the 2001 Texas Rangers were pretty bad, but they had two Rodriguezes on the team (and both were voted in as starters by the fans). I was looking for the token one-player-per-team player, so to speak.

There were 22 results, most of them Royals. Let's take a look at a Magpie Table. Rondell White switched teams in mid-season; his total statistics are shown. Other than that, the columns should be self-explanatory:

First, the hitters:

Player	        Team	Year	GS	AVG	OBP	SLG	RC/27	Ranks That Year 
M. Sweeney	KCR	2002	126	.340	.417	.563	8.89	AVG-2, OBP-4, SLG-7 
B. Giles	PIT	2001	160	.309	.404	.590	8.85	OBP-10, SLG-10, R-10, 3B-8 
Ichiro	        SEA	2004	161	.372	.414	.455	7.68	AVG-1, OBP-2, H-1, SB-2 
M. Sweeney	KCR	2001	147	.304	.374	.542	7.47	SLG-10, 2B-2 
D. Young	DET	2003	155	.297	.372	.537	7.14	3B-10 
M. Sweeney	KCR	2005	122	.300	.347	.517	6.44	 
F. Lopez	CIN	2005	148	.291	.352	.486	6.19	 
S. Casey	CIN	2001	145	.310	.369	.458	6.12	 
F. McGriff	TBD	2000	158	.277	.373	.452	6.06	 
R. Winn	        TBD	2002	152	.298	.360	.461	6.01	2B-8, 3B-2, SB-7 
R. White	SDP	2003	137	.289	.341	.488	5.78	 
K. Harvey	KCR	2004	120	.287	.338	.421	4.97	 
R. Fick	        DET	2002	148	.270	.331	.433	4.91	 
G. Vaughn	TBD	2001	136	.233	.333	.433	4.78

The bad teams that sent just one player combined to send a hitter that scores, on average, six and a half runs per game! In case you're wondering, the AL and NL averages in that time period range from 5.30 (2000 AL) to 4.45 (2005 NL).

Now, I know what you're thinking. All-Stars, Royals though they may be, are still All-Stars. Wouldn't they be better than regular players anyway?

Glad you asked. Let's look at the 2005 AL. 4.76 runs were scored per game in the American League last year, and the All-Stars combined for a (raw) average of...what, exactly?

Player	       RC/27 
A. Rodriguez	9.53 
D. Ortiz	8.90 
V. Guerrero	8.14 
M. Ramirez	8.14 
M. Texeira	7.85 
M. Young	7.55 
B. Roberts	7.38 
P. Konerko	7.24 
G. Sheffield	7.00 
AVERAGE	        6.61 
M. Tejada	6.46 
M. Sweeney	6.44 
J. Varitek	6.44 
M. Mora	        5.71 
Ichiro!         5.63 
A. Soriano	5.58 
J. Damon	5.51 
S. Hillenbrand	5.21 
G. Anderson	4.89 
I. Rodriguez	4.44 
S. Podsednik	4.17

In other words, the difference between an All-Star team and the Bad All-Stars is negligible. So my initial surprise at so many good hitters showing up as the lone representatives was replaced with the surprise of learning that the "Bad" ones are just as good as the "rest" of them.

Pudge wasn't very good last year, so why wasn't he on the list of Bad All-Stars? The Tigers were 42-44 at the break -- hardly .400 material. Yes, he was the only Tiger to go last year, but looking through 30 teams times 2 leagues times 5 years in search of the Lone Stars takes a lot more time than checking one standings page five times.

The 2005 starters, by the way combined for a full run more per game; about 7.5. Who said the fans vote for undeserving players?

Now, we've established that the token players who are hitters generally don't suck. Sure, you've got Greg Vaughn and Ken Harvey in there, but also Brian Giles, Ichiro!, Mike Sweeney, Mike Sweeney and Mike Sweeney.

Here are the pitchers:

Player	       Team	Year	 IP	 ERA	WHIP	ERA+ 
R. Johnson	ARI	2004	245.7	2.60	0.90	171 
R. Halladay	TOR	2002	239.3	2.93	1.19	152 
L. Carter	TBD	2003	 80.3	3.47	1.24	128 
L. Hernandez	MON	2004	255.0	3.60	1.24	115 
B. Fuentes	COL	2005	 74.3	2.91	1.25	163 
D. Baez	        TBD	2005	 72.3	2.86	1.33	151 
B. Sheets	MIL	2001	151.3	4.76	1.41	93 
S. Reynolds	HOU	2000	131.0	5.22	1.49	94

That's not too bad. Back-to-back Cy Young Award winners, un cyborg des Expos and a pretty good reliever. The only eyebrow-raisers there are Reynolds and the Devil Rays' closers. (2001 was Ben Sheets' first year in the majors.) In fact, let's just take a look at Tampa Bay's All-Stars every year since they became a franchise:

1998: Arrojo
1999: Canseco, Hernandez
2000: McGriff
2001: Vaughn
2002: Winn
2003: Carter
2004: Crawford
2005: Baez

No wonder we think of this team as one without pitching. Carl Crawford and Fred McGriff vs. Roberto Hernandez and Rolando Arrojo?

And yes, I was shocked to see two All-Stars in 1999. That was because Hernandez finished with 43 saves and Jose Canseco "slugged" his way to 34 homers and a .279/.369/.563 line. If it makes you feel better, Canseco didn't play in the All-Star Game that year and Hernandez had to pitch to Ed Sprague.

Because, you know, you can't have an All-Star Game without Ed Sprague.

So all of this brings us to 2006. The lone All-Stars this year are Scott Kazmir, Miguel Tejada, Grady Sizemore, Mark Redman, Vladimir Guerrero, Barry Zito, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Zambrano, Bronson Arroyo, Brandon Webb, Jason Schmidt and Trevor Hoffman.

Wait, what?

In six years, we had 22 "Lone Stars" and there are 12 in 2006 alone? What's going on here?

The answer is perhaps obvious: seven White Sox, six Mets, five Blue Jays, four Yankees and four Red Sox -- six teams combine for (essentially) an entire roster. Hands up if you thought the Jays would have more All-Stars than either of the Red Sox or Yankees. Yeah, yeah, put your hands down; you're all lying.

So how good are these Lone Stars? I'll just look at the hitters (stats through Saturday's games).

G. Sizemore  7.51
A. Soriano   6.69
AVERAGE      6.53
V. Guerrero  6.11
M. Tejada    5.81

Six and a half runs again, eh? What a surprise.

Finally, you might recall that I said something at the end of my report on the Mets series. Amazingly, it still applies now (who could have seen this coming?!), so I'll repeat myself:

So where are the Jays now? Pretty much where they've been all year. Four (or so) games behind the Red Sox, two (or so) behind the Yankees. The non-Doc pitching still leaves a lot to be desired and B.J. Ryan is still kicking ass. I'll see you in two weeks, when things will be the same.

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