BOO of the Week 7/7

Since 2003 Major League Baseball has been pushing on us the idea that "This time it counts." This marketing catch phrase refers to the rule that the league who wins the All Star Game will have homefield advantage in that years upcoming World Series. This has been a much debated rule, but that is a debate that can be made another day. Instead the problem with the Midsummer Classic "counting" is the way the rosters are selected.

The first way to select players is fan voting, and this method is used to select the 8 (9 for the AL when the DH is used) position players who will start the game. The major flaw with this method of course is fans "stuffing the ballot box." Every year we see players who are undeserving of a spot get voted in either because of the market they play in or the country they are from. Using the newly selected 2008 teams, you can see the problems on both leagues rosters. First Alfonso Soriano and David Ortiz were both voted into the game, but neither is going to play because of injury. Both Soriano and Ortiz barely have 200 ABs and have spent significant amounts of time on the DL. Other players like Ichiro and Fukudome are borderline All Stars, but were voted in to start mostly because of the Japanese influence on the ballots.

The second way of selecting players is the players vote and this consists of players, coaches and managers choosing 5 starting pitchers, 3 relief pitchers and a backup for each position. There is an exception to the rule that says if the top vote getter has already been voted in by the fans, then the 2nd place vote getter in this category will be selected to the team. Again using an example from the 2008 teams, Joe Mauer was the leading vote getter by the fans and players, so the runner up from the player vote Jason Varitek, hitting an ugly .215, was selected to the team. This says to me that players are voting purely on reputation or popularity because there is no way the Red Sox captain deserved a spot over the little liked A.J Pierzynski

The third way to select All-Stars is the Managers Selection. This is simply the Manager of each team selecting the remaining players to be on the roster. One problem with this method is Managers selecting their own players who may or may not deserve a selection but this can never be proven.

The other problem with the third method is who the Managers can select from. One of the requirements for each roster is that each Major League team must be represented by at least one player. This limits Managers from selecting players who may help them win the game which counts and forces them to sometimes select undeserving players.

The final method consists of MLB naming 5 players to a ballot for each league and again leaving the decision to the biased fans to select 1 more player for each roster.

If Major League Baseball wants to tell Baseball fans that "This time it counts" then they need to fix the system which players are selected. I am all for the game counting in some way, but then we should see the true best players in each league. Conversely if Major League Baseball wants to make the game about the fans and who they want to see, then it should be a true exhibition.

Leaving the voting to fans enables cheating and always leads to the wrong players being selected. Giving players a vote allows for popularity to come into play and leads to a flawed system to choose if their vote is the same as the fans. Finally allowing managers to select players, and forcing them to select from every remaining roster causes mistakes as well. Baseball needs to make up their mind and decide which way they want to market this game.

2008 was no different than any other year with undeserving players making the team and for that Major League Baseball I have to just tell you one thing...

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!