Voting for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game is winding down, and I figured I’d share some of my picks and why I decided to go the route I did with a few of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In most spots, I feel like there was a clear, deserving player, but others certainly didn’t fit into the same category. Anyways, let’s get into all my picks so I can explain a few.<\/p>\n
In the infield, I went with Nick Kurtz and Matt Olson at first base.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second base in both leagues is where I found some questions, but I went with Travis Bazzana and Xavier Edwards. I don’t think people are talking enough about what Edwards has done throughout the season. I think he deserves a bit more respect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He’s genuinely a very fun player to watch, and his .800 OPS, as well as his 128 OPS+, shows that he should at least get some love for this All-Star Game.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bazzana is in a similar boat, though I did factor in that he made his debut after the season began and has only played in 48 games. Still, he has an .841 OPS and a 135 OPS+.<\/p>\n
Going to third base, I know this might surprise some, but I actually went with Zack Gelof in the American League. My reason for that is because Jose Ramirez is having a down year by his standards, though I still expect him to be an All-Star.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ramirez has just a .757 OPS and a 112 OPS+. Gelof, who has played in 61 games, has an .838 OPS and a 125 OPS+. He also has a 24-game hit streak.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the National League, I went with Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> third baseman Max Muncy.<\/p>\n The American League shortstop was probably the easiest pick I made all day, selecting Bobby Witt Jr. In the National League, it wasn’t much more difficult, taking CJ Abrams.<\/p>\n To finalize things in the infield, I went with Shea Langeliers of the Athletics<\/a> and Drake Baldwin of the Atlanta Braves<\/a> behind the dish.<\/p>\n The outfield definitely gave me things to consider, but I wanted to get a bit creative with this and try to give it to players I really thought deserved it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Cody Bellinger, Byron Buxton, and Riley Greene were my three picks in the American League. I would have taken Aaron Judge, but I don’t think it’s fair to give it to a player who we know certainly isn’t going to be in the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n National League-wise, I went with Corbin Carroll, Juan Soto, and James Wood.<\/p>\n Because I know Shohei Ohtani will be selected as a pitcher and will definitely be in the game no matter what, and he’ll definitely be hitting, I didn’t go with him for the National League designated hitter.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, I went with Kyle Schwarber. Schwarber has been incredible to watch once again and deserves to be playing in his home city during this All-Star Game.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the American League, I went with the second-best hitter in Major League Baseball behind Judge in Yordan Alvarez.<\/p>\n More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Voting for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game is winding down, and I figured I’d share some of my…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-757638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}