Welcome Aboard

Hello folks, welcome aboard my second blog, the Ryan Express. Unlike my other blog, which focuses primarily on politics, items in the news and current goings-on in life around me, this blog will be sports-specific. The content will largely be about baseball, sometimes football, and very occasionally some other sport or sport-like activity.

Perhaps auspiciously, Major League Baseball's All-Star Game is being played tonight, and you might suspect that I would go on about the always-popular ASG snubs, but I feel like that is less relevant than usual this year, due to the large number of players dropping out due to injury. Instead of talking about deserving players who didn't make one of the all-star teams, I want to talk about a couple players who did: Derek Jeter and Scott Rolen.

First off, voting for the All-Star Game is not an exact science. There is no set criteria for voting, such as if your votes should be cast based on first-half performance or combined career accomplishments, so the whole process is plenty subjective anyway, nevermind when it comes down to comparing, say, an Ichiro Suzuki with a high batting average and lots of stolen bases to a Carlos Quentin, who amasses homeruns and RBI and not much else. And every year it seems, you get a player or two voted to start who does not deserve such an honor, at least based on their performance for the first half of the season. My position is, the All-Star Game is played every year, and as such, the selections should be based on performance in that season. They have a career all-star selection, it's called the Hall of Fame. Unless you have a situation like with Cal Ripken, Jr. about a decade ago, where it was known he was retiring and he was voted in to start one final all-star game as a tribute, career performance should not really be a consideration. Which brings me to Derek Jeter.

The Yankees shortstop is a certain Hall of Famer, a very accomplished player and by all accounts a classy guy, but he does not deserve to be an All-Star this year. He was voted to start by the fans anyway, based on name recognition and his Yankees uniform. Jeter is clearly on the decline, and spent a chunk of the first half on the disabled list besides. Asdrubal Cabrera or Jhonny Peralta would have been far more deserving of the honor (Cabrera will be starting anyway, since Jeter has dropped out of participation, but that doesn't change the fact that he was elected in the first place). This is nothing new, but it is indicative of a long-needed change in the all-star selection procedures. I am a proponent of letting the players select their peers, and if MLB wants to keep the fans involved, let them pick the starters from among those chosen. There will still be disproportionate numbers of Yankees and Red Sox, because their payrolls permit them more all-star caliber players than other teams, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

Over in the National League, there is much discussion over the inclusion of Scott Rolen, the Reds third baseman. Rolen, like Jeter, has spent time on the disabled list, and is on the downside of a Hall of Fame career (if you don't buy that, feel free to engage me on it and I'll explain why he absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame). Unlike Jeter, however, Rolen is at an extremely weak position, where perennial all-stars David Wright, Ryan Zimmerman and Chipper Jones are all currently out of action and elected starter Placido Polanco (who is really only having an okay year anyway) is also on the shelf. Consequently, Rolen found himself not only on the team, but in the starting lineup, despite a line of .241-5-36. Also unlike Jeter, Rolen was a players selection, since unlike most fans, his peers appreciate his still-stellar defense. And make no mistake about it, Rolen is likely to win another Gold Glove, and he will thoroughly deserve it. He is near-flawless in the field and continues to make highlight-reel plays on a regular basis. And most significantly, there is not another third baseman in the NL right now who clearly outshines him based on offense and defense combined. And one final point: how many times was Ozzie Smith selected as an all-star based on his defense alone? So let's stop with the Rolen-bashing. We all know what his offensive numbers are, but he's still more valuable than any other available third baseman in the NL.

On one final note, I gotta say something about the Home Run Derby that was last night. That was far and away the least interesting Home Run Derby I've seen yet. Half of the participants I very much do not care for in the first place, all but a couple of them gave very lackluster performances, and the new format flat sucks. Since there are only eight spots anyway, you'd think they'd make a point of making sure that eight teams were represented to enhance interest across the board. Instead, we got two Red Sox and two Brewers, as each "captain" selected one of his own teammates. I didn't want to see David Ortiz or Prince Fielder anyway, as Ortiz is just a diva (he made them change the music that was playing while he was hitting? seriously?), Fielder is a fat piece of trash, and both of them are one-dimensional players. Adrian Gonzalez was a legit choice, but Rickie Weeks is no homerun hitter. He's a line-drive hitter who happens to get homeruns because he makes good contact. Justin Upton, who would've given the Arizonans a hometown guy to cheer for and hits as many moonshots as anyone in the league, would have been a much better choice. I'm sure I'm not alone in being disappointed by this year's HRD, the fans in attendance were pretty quiet for most of the event. MLB ought to expand the field just a bit, shorten the rounds so it doesn't go on all night, and limit participants to one per team at most.