Kuzul

It doesn’t take a hardcore sabermetrician to realize that the All-Star vote is a sham. After all, the best catcher in the game (Miguel Olivo) received only the 11th-most votes at his position, and Omar Infante made the cut while MVP candidate Ryan Zimmerman had to sit at home (not the fans’ fault, but still). 

But even if it’s impossible to distinguish the game’s best players by looking at the vote totals, I wondered if it would be possible to gather some more unorthodox information from the results: namely, the impact of fans’ biases on their ballots.

I quickly scratched out an equation for a statistic I made up, called “All-Star Score,” to measure how deserving a player is of fans’ votes for the Midsummer Classic:

All-Star Score = (Wins Above Replacement* + 2) ^ 2

*—numbers as of the All-Star Game

I calculated the All-Star Scores for each player listed on the ballot and added them together. I then added up the total All-Star votes cast (Major League Baseball releases the vote totals for only the Top 25 outfielders and Top 8 vote-getters at other positions per league, so I used 300,000 as a baseline for those players whose results were not available) and divided that by the composite All-Star Score to find out what the average All-Star Score Point was worth (just under 74,000 votes).

Finally, I calculated the votes-per-All-Star Score Points ratios for each team, then divided that by the league average to get an estimate of what proportion of votes each team’s players got relative to what they deserved. The numbers below show each team’s relative figure as a percentage—a “Bias Score” of 100 would mean the team received exactly the right amount of support (of course, no club came out at 100).

I’m fully aware of the flaws in my experiment: the statistics used were compiled after the voting, not during it; I’m sure my 300,000-vote estimate for the lower-tier players is extremely generous to some and a big low-ball to others; and, of course, there’s no guarantee that my little equation represents the ideal proportion of All-Star votes a candidate should receive.

Nonetheless, I think the results are both telling and interesting.

Tier 1: The Unloved (79 and below)

If you look at the vote totals, seeing the Royals and A’s at the top of the list shouldn’t come as a surprise—they’re two of the three miserable teams that didn’t get a single player on the voting leaderboards.

Meanwhile, the starting nine for the Orioles—the only other club to be completely neglected—have been so bad that Baltimore landed in the middle third of the Bias Scores despite having the absolute minimum number of votes. Ouch.

It’s no surprise to see struggling teams like the Indians and Diamondbacks fall this low, but I would have expected Padres, Blue Jays, and Nationals fans to show their favorite players a little more love in light of their teams’ expectations-beating early performances. And I’m shocked that the Rockies haven’t been able to generate more excitement, what with their recent string of comeback wins in playoff races.

However, I’d say the biggest upsets here are the teams from Chicago—particularly the Cubs. North Side fans have a reputation of being among the most loyal and passionate in baseball (after more than a century without a championship, they’d have to be). It’s a telling sign that something is very wrong in Wrigleyville.

Tier 2: The Average (80 to 120)

The first team that jumps out at you here is Boston—how can Red Sox Nation be classified as a relatively unbiased fanbase? Take a look at the leaderboards and it becomes clear.

Adrian Beltre finished behind Michael Young, Kevin Youkilis got barely half the votes of scuffling Mark Teixeira, even local hero David Ortiz fell behind the anemic Hideki Matsui. Derek Jeter has been better than Marco Scutaro, fine, but does he really deserve six times as many votes?

Two teams in this grouping redefine pathetic. A 20th-place finish for Andrew McCutchen is enough to put the Pirates squarely in the middle of the pack because their eight candidates have combined to be of less value than Dan Uggla.

Astros fans, meanwhile, turn out to have a positive bias because of Lance Berkman’s eighth-place finish at first base. That’s what happens when your team has a negative composite WAR .

The two AL West teams are both interesting cases. The Mariners don’t have much of a reputation for a strong fan base, but people love Ichiro and the now-retired Ken Griffey Jr. raked in over a million votes.

Given that the Rangers have the third-highest team vote total in the game, you might expect them to have a far higher Bias Score. But you might not realize that Texas also has the third-highest composite WAR.

Tier 3: The Coddled (121-150)

Most of these names were pretty predictable. The Brewers are probably the most surprising team to be ranked this far up. Their high score is entirely the fault of Ryan Braun, who led all outfielders with just under 3 million votes despite a significant offensive dropoff and horrific defense, even by his standards.

Tier 4: The Overindulgent (151-190)

Eight years ago, the Twins were on the verge of falling victim to contraction. Three years ago, the Rays had never finished a season with more than 70 wins. If you’d said then that both teams would soon have some of the most passionate fans in baseball, you would have been laughed out of the room.

Tier 5: The Insane (191 and up)

I’m sure some commenter will accuse me of writing this article for the sole purpose of blasting the Yankees. I’ll say here for the first and only time that, while their coming out on top was somewhat predictable, this is just how it happened.

Just look at the vote totals. A-Rod over Beltre two-to-one, Curtis Granderson over Alex Rios by a nearly three-to-one margin, Teixeira over Paul Konerko almost five-to-one, Jeter over Cliff Pennington by over 10-to-one . Is there any logical explanation for that? And this isn’t even taking into consideration Nick Swisher’s Final Vote victory over Youkilis.

I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t a definitive study—the rankings would surely be shuffled around if the full, precise vote totals were available (especially towards the lower end), and I don’t think anyone believes for a second that fans in Houston are more loyal than their counterparts in Boston.

But I still think the results are somewhat telling, so in the future, fans in Minnesota and Wisconsin might want to think twice before complaining about East Coast bias.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Baseball’s hot stove is heating up. With two weeks left until the trade deadline and Cliff Lee already dealt, the two big names left on the rumor circuit are Carl Crawford and Jayson Werth.

The two have much in common: Both are outfielders who are among the best players on their respective teams. They both play for clubs that are fully in the thick of playoff contention—Crawford’s Rays are three games up in the AL Wild Card, while Werth’s Phillies sit just 1.5 games behind the Rockies and Dodgers in the NL.

But, perhaps more importantly, both stars are going to be free agents come winter, and both figure to price themselves far out of their current teams’ budgets when they hit the open market.

That’s why they’d be traded: GMs Andrew Friedman and Ruben Amaro Jr. might decide that the returns they could get for Crawford and Werth, respectively, would be worth more than a pair of compensation picks and two more months of their production (presumably, at least—there’s no official word on how seriously the teams are considering these deals, if at all).

Of course, such deals would be monumentally stupid for both the Rays and the Phillies—they’re not rebuilding teams playing for 2013, they’re contenders chugging towards October.

When teams send their big stars away for prospects, it’s usually because the production they provide is basically meaningless for a hopeless team. The Phillies and Rays, however, are in the midst of tight pennant races—is there any other time when having stars around could possibly be more important?

But, while both deals would be mistakes, the Phillies trading Werth would be exponentially more foolish than the Rays parting ways with Crawford for one simple reason: the Phils will have a much harder time finding a replacement.

The Rays’ roster is built around versatility. B.J. Upton and Ben Zobrist can man two of the three spots in the Tropicana big grass with ease. Matt Joyce would get first crack at filling the left field hole, and if he couldn’t cut it, chances are Sean Rodriguez or Gabe Kabler could.

Of course, there’s also über-prospect Desmond Jennings. The No. 6 pick on Baseball America’s preseason top prospects list fought off an early injury and is hitting .297 with 21 steals in 64 games at Triple-A Durham. Rays fans have been anxiously awaiting his call-up for months, and there seems to be little doubt that he’s ready to take the majors by storm.

But if the team decides none of those viable options are good enough, it wouldn’t be too hard to get a decent replacement via trade. At his current rate of production, Crawford is on pace to provide a full four additional wins to whatever team he plays for from now until the end of the season. To put that in perspective, consider that 18 of MLB’s 30 teams are within four games of a playoff spot.

The point is this: Crawford would command an enormous return in any deal. A ton of talent would change hands, and the Rays would certainly be able to demand a respectable, big-league-ready outfielder in addition to the expected plethora of promising prospects.

The Phillies’ depth chart is substantially more shallow. If Werth is shipped out of town, the only currently available replacements would be Ben Francisco (.659 OPS) and Ross Gload (.668).

There’s always Domonic Brown, the top prospect left in a depleted Phillies farm system. He’s mashed MiLB pitching in 2010, hitting .326/.391/.608 with 19 homers and 59 RBI in 80 games.

The problem? He’s played just 15 games above Double-A. His bat might be Major League-ready—there’s only one way to find out—but it seems like an awfully big risk for a team looking to make up ground in a close race.

The Phillies could trade for a replacement, but it wouldn’t be as easy as it would be for the Rays, because Amaro wouldn’t be able to get nearly as much in return for Werth as Friedman would for Crawford.

On May 11, Werth was on top of the world, hitting .348 with seven homers, 26 RBI, and a scintillating 1.112 OPS in just 32 games. Since then, he’s hit just .242 with only six homers, 23 RBI, and a meager .738 OPS in 52 contests. In his last 15 starts, he hit .214 with no homers, just two RBI, and a nauseating .547 OPS.

Crawford’s WAR to date is 4.8, best of any outfielder; Werth’s is 2.2, which ranks 30th. How much can the Phillies expect a trade to net them if the other 29 teams could be expected to have someone better?

A contending team selling low on one of its star players when there’s no obvious candidate to replace him? Unless there’s some strange set of circumstances that we fans can’t conceive of, any professional general manager that would even consider pulling the trigger on such a deal deserves to be fired immediately.

Given that Crawford is in the midst of a career year and there are a number of possible in-house replacements, you might consider the Phillies’ situation and decide that the Rays trading Crawford sounds reasonable by comparison, and it does. But that doesn’t make it the right thing to do.

It is imperative to remember that the Rays are a contending team. Sure, they’d be selling high on Crawford. But if his trade value is at its peak, doesn’t that also mean he matters to the Rays? Keep in mind that the Rays are rolling towards October, and would probably be among the teams trying to trade for Crawford were he playing for, say, the Indians.

That’s like dumping all your shares of a company right before an all-expense-paid stockholders’ retreat. If you wait to release your holdings, you might not earn quite as big of a profit, but doesn’t a free vacation outweigh the loss of a few bucks?

A year from now, Crawford and Werth will be suiting up in other teams’ uniforms and cashing exorbitant checks from fat-pocketed owners. But with dreams of the World Series trophy floating through both clubhouses, there’s no reason for either player to book an early ticket out of town.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

The 2010 MLB Trade Deadline is just two weeks away. Rumors have abounded about deals involving everyone from established stars to this season’s breakouts to low-key role players.

In anticipation of the ratcheting up of the trade buzz, Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists took a poll asking where each of 27 oft-discussed names will be playing come August 1st.

I picked out the 15 players who had the most interesting predictions to be featured in this slideshow. For each player, I have included the full results of where we thought he’d go, and a different writer submitted an explanation of why he or she thinks the trade would work out.

Before you eviscerate anyone for suggesting Texas pursue another starting pitcher, please keep in mind that the poll was conducted before the Rangers’ shocking acquisition of Cliff Lee.

Thanks to everyone who participated, and enjoy the results!

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls. If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

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The best players in baseball don’t always make the All-Star teams. It’s a fact of life that we have come to accept.

And yet, each year, we (or at least, I) are shocked by the idiocy of the fan, player, and coach selections. With all of the slumping stars, humdrum homers, and straight-up head-scratchers that end up filling out the rosters, it’s hard not to keep thinking about the deserving players who got left off.

I feel terrible for the players who are sitting in their living rooms this All-Star Break, watching their inferior peers being honored on national TV. So I thought making an All-Star team for them was the least I could do.

In this slideshow are the nine snubbed hitters and two overlooked pitchers who most deserved spots on their respective leagues’ teams. The resulting team isn’t as good as a real All-Star roster, but it’s certainly talented enough to give either league’s squad a run for its money.

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The All-Star vote is broken, and this year’s manager picks are atrocious. Looking at the rosters for the 2010 Midsummer Classic, it’s clear that the league’s best players will not be represented.

So Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists decided to see if we could do better.

In this slideshow are the results of a poll conducted during the last week of All-Star voting. We’ve certainly got some different ideas about who should play in the Midsummer Classic; in the NL alone, three of the nine real-life voting leaders would be on the bench or at home on July 13 if we had our way (AL results were released yesterday).

Included in each slide are the full vote totals at each position, as well as a look back at the results from our May and June polls. A lot has changed since last time.

As always, each slide features commentary from a different Featured Columnist, but this time there’s a twist: In the interest of encouraging minority representation, if a winning player in this poll also came out on top last time, his slide instead includes a write-up from a dissident about why he or she voted for someone else (if you want want more details about an old winner, just go back to last time and update the numbers).

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls. If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

Begin Slideshow

The All-Star teams were announced two days ago, and, as always, the fans, players, and managers all made some idiotic decisions .

So Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists decided to see if we could do better.

In this slideshow are the results of a poll conducted during the last week of All-Star voting. We’ve certainly got some different ideas about who should play in the Midsummer Classic; in the American League alone, three of the nine real-life voting leaders would be on the bench or at home on July 13 if we had our way.

Included in each slide are the full vote totals at each position, as well as a look back at the results from our May and June polls.

As always, each player features commentary from a different Featured Columnist, but this time there’s a twist: in the interest of encouraging minority representation, if a winning player in this poll also came out on top last time, his slide instead includes a write-up from a dissident about why he or she voted for someone else (if you want want more details about an old winner, just go back to last time and update the numbers).

Thanks to everyone who participated!

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls. If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

Begin Slideshow

Every year, we fans screw up the All-Star voting by picking our favorite players instead of the best ones. It’s tradition.

Then, the managers, coaches, and players fill in the remaining spots by, once again, picking the most popular stars and their teammates instead of the players who are, you know, actually the best in the game.

The result is a smorgasbord of marquee names who coast to roster spots, up-and-comers fighting for recognition, and a handful of guys who make the entire MLB fan-base scratch its collective head.

A few deserving players are inevitably lost in the shuffle, and each year I think I’ve grown numb to the sensation of unjust team selection. But then I see the rosters and realize that the snubs are worse than I could have possibly imagined.

In these slides are the most ridiculously snubbed players. Every single manager or coach who facilitated the decisions to leave these guys off the team should be ashamed.

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Voting for the 2010 MLB All-Star Game ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. That means this is our last chance to make a stand against the popular yet inferior big-name players who infiltrate the Midsummer Classic every year.

It’s too late for some of these races. Adrian Gonzalez and Joey Votto have no chance of catching Albert Pujols, for example, and there’s no way Shin-Soo Choo and Alex Rios will gain enough ground on Ichiro Suzuki by end of business today.

But there’s still time for some close races to be won for those who truly deserve them.

Two of the three players listed here were in second place at their respective positions at the last update. The third is already winning his race, but is facing a potential challenge from a clearly inferior rival.

Just remember as you flip through this slideshow that, if you support undeserving players, you’re going to be stuck watching them.

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Yesterday, Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists celebrated the turn to July—a symbolic midpoint of the MLB season—with the results of a mock AL MVP vote.

Today we take a look at the most valuable players in the National League.

If you thought the AL results were close, this race was even tighter. In a system where a first-place vote is worth 14 points, the top two finishers were separated by only three points.

Meanwhile, the third-place finisher actually got the most first-place votes, yet finished only four points ahead of the fourth-highest vote-getter.

The top 10 finishers are highlighted in this slideshow, complete as always with commentary from a different FC for every player.

If your favorite player isn’t among the leaders, be sure to click through to the full results. A whopping 37 players were named on at least one of the 23 ballots, so chances are he got at least a couple votes.

Thanks to everyone who voted and submitted commentary!

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls. If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

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Tomorrow, we turn our calendars to July. The start of the seventh Gregorian month isn’t the precise midway point of the MLB season, but it’s a symbolic transition, one that causes fans to say, “Wow, only three months left!”

Even if it’s not precisely the halfway point, it’s still a great time to start thinking about individual awards. Last week, Bleacher Report’s Featured Columnists kicked off the celebration with Cy Young voting for both the AL and the NL.

And so, this week, we put on a mock MVP vote. The AL results are here, and the NL results will be posted tomorrow.

The top 10 vote-getters are highlighted in this slideshow. This contest was insanely close—in a system where a first-place vote is worth 14 points, the winner’s margin of victory was only four points.

If your favorite player isn’t among the leaders, click through to the full results. Chances are, he got at least a couple votes.

Thanks to everyone who voted and submitted commentary!

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls. If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

Begin Slideshow