Brandon Webb was recently announced as the starting pitcher for the National League team at this year's All-Star game. He'll be facing off against Cliff Lee and the American League. Webb started this season by winning his first 9 starts, not decisions, starts. He then lost a few but recovered and was 11-2. Lately he's been shakey at best and has had flashes of brilliance mixed in with ineffectiveness. I'll be the first to tell you no one is worried about Brandon Webb at all. His current pitching line is 13-4, 3.27 ERA, 1.17 WHIP with 106 k's vs. 33 walks through 124 innings and has about a million Pure Quality Starts mixed in there...or something, I don't know, Jesse can tell you more about that. It's also worth mentioning (particularly to Diamondback fans and Webb owners in fantasy that he had a rather fantastic second half last year). At any rate, Brandon Webb so far has been the crown jewel of the NL West, and in compliance with league rules: every team must have a representative at the All-Star game (Mark Redman, an all-star in 2006 is now on the Rockies but unfortunately was not selected to the All-Star game). Without further ado, here are the teams of the NL West and their respective members scheduled to appear at this year's All-Star game:
Arizona Diamondbacks: Dan Haren, Brandon Webb
Colorado Rockies: Aaron Cook, Matt Holliday
Los Angeles Dodgers: Russell Martin
San Diego Padres: Adrian Gonzalez
San Francisco Giants: Tim Lincecum, Brian Wilson
It's also worth noting that aside from Webb, no one in the NL West is going to be a starter (but Kosuke Fukudome will be a starter, lame), and so far no one has agreed to participate in the HR Derby, although the only logical people would be Holliday and Gonzalez.
So there you have it folks, tune in to (most likely) the FOX Network on July 15th at 8pm EST to see the Red Sox face the Cubs under the guise of the All-Star Game. Is anyone else really unhappy that this game determines World Series home field advantage?
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8 comments:
Paul --
Great title for this post.
At first when you said "no one is worried about Webb," I thought you were talking about opposing teams. Then I decided you must have been sarcastic. Then I realized you were talking about people who want him to pitch well. He will continue to do so.
I have always and (as long as it reamins the method) will always think that determining home field advantage for the World Series via the All Star Game is idiotic. Overcompensating for a tie one year by doing something stupid in perpetuity does not really make any sense, although the previous method was just as bad.
If Anthony actually gave us the ability to post polls (you control freak!) I would post one on how home field advantage should be determined (my opinion is that it should be whichever League is better in Interleague play).
This method will actually work well, however, if the Red Sox and Cubs actually meet in the World Series. Let's go Tampa Bay!
Yea Jesse, the WS home advantage is so so stupid. The interleague idea is better, but I'm still not entirely on board because it may be based on something which could be contrary to the two teams involved (EG the AL having a better interleague record but the AL team in the WS having a worse interleague record (or even losing interleague record) than the NL WS team).
Of course the counter argument is that each league should have a comparable number of teams in contention for the playoffs during and immediately after the interleague portion of the schedule and as such, all the involved teams should be playing harder during interleague to try to secure a potential advantage in October. This all of course makes your idea entirely viable but if it was up to me, WS home field advantage would be settled by an intense, best of 7 set of rock, paper, scissors.
And yea, the title is great, but really, don't give props to me, Shaq deserves it all - it's just too great a line.
i always thought rock, paper, scissors has to be best of three.
i understand your point about interleague play record being misleading, but as far as i can sort of tell, because of the imbalance in schedules (a mediocre team can score a lot of victories in a weak division), it at least corrects for those factors.
personally, i would abolish interleague play. the only advantage i see for interleague play is that it allows fans in cities that aren't NY, Chicago, LA and Oakland (i'm just naming these off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm missing one or more) to see teams and players in the other league. But since mlb.tv and MLB Extra Innings are now available at a pretty reasonable rate, I think Interleague Play is superfluous.
And, boy, Shaq can rap up a storm. Kind of funny that he would heckle Kobe when the Suns (who were way better without Shaq than the Lakers without Kobe) went nowhere this postseason.
Haha I wish I could give complete power to for the polls but unfortunately it does not let me. But that will be my next poll.
To sum up my thoughts on your arguments I agree with the All-Star Game determining home field of the world series is dumb but I wouldnt totally abolish interleague play.
Interleague play is nice for all teams. The players may have issues for it but it's still great for the fans. When else would Royals fans be able to see Albert Pujols play? Or how else would Minnesota Twins fans see Ben Sheets play? You get the idea.
Many of these small market teams have no shot at making the World Series seeing some of the greats play, interleague gives fans that opportunity to see them play.
It actually does help the players to, well to a degree. We all know how often players are moved around. Because of interleague, if a player is traded from one league to another, there is a better degree of familiarity. Not a huge degree of familiarity, but a little bit.
The winning team of the All-Star Game having home field advantage of the World Series is something I don't like but I see why they do it.
Excitement and interest must be generated for this game one way or another both for TV ratings and player interest in the game.
Baseball was starting to have the problem where stars did not want to risk an injury and kept opting out of the All-star game. If I remember right the year before they instituted the home-field stipulation (2005 maybe?) they had a big problem with this.
I propose that well of course they do away with it. I also propose that:
1. ALL players receive some sort of monetary bonus if they play in the All-Star game. This bonus should be the same flat rate with starters getting more than reserves. But the catch is if they make it and opt out, they don't receive this bonus.
This should generate interest amongst the players.
For the fans:
1. I'm not sure about marketing issues when it comes to this but whatever team wins the All-Star game, the home-field of the All-Star game stays in that winning team's league for the next season.
What do you guys think?
Haha I wish I could give complete power to for the polls but unfortunately it does not let me. But that will be my next poll.
To sum up my thoughts on your arguments I agree with the All-Star Game determining home field of the world series is dumb but I wouldnt totally abolish interleague play.
Interleague play is nice for all teams. The players may have issues for it but it's still great for the fans. When else would Royals fans be able to see Albert Pujols play? Or how else would Minnesota Twins fans see Ben Sheets play? You get the idea.
Many of these small market teams have no shot at making the World Series seeing some of the greats play, interleague gives fans that opportunity to see them play.
It actually does help the players to, well to a degree. We all know how often players are moved around. Because of interleague, if a player is traded from one league to another, there is a better degree of familiarity. Not a huge degree of familiarity, but a little bit.
The winning team of the All-Star Game having home field advantage of the World Series is something I don't like but I see why they do it.
Excitement and interest must be generated for this game one way or another both for TV ratings and player interest in the game.
Baseball was starting to have the problem where stars did not want to risk an injury and kept opting out of the All-star game. If I remember right the year before they instituted the home-field stipulation (2005 maybe?) they had a big problem with this.
I propose that well of course they do away with it. I also propose that:
1. ALL players receive some sort of monetary bonus if they play in the All-Star game. This bonus should be the same flat rate with starters getting more than reserves. But the catch is if they make it and opt out, they don't receive this bonus.
This should generate interest amongst the players.
For the fans:
1. I'm not sure about marketing issues when it comes to this but whatever team wins the All-Star game, the home-field of the All-Star game stays in that winning team's league for the next season.
What do you guys think?
Technically, interleague play waters down one of the perks of the Allstar game, and that's seeing NL compete with the AL. I don't care too much one way or the other in terms of pro or anti interleague play. It can be kind of lame from a purist stance, but it generates way too much revenue for baseball to do away with it.
Also, Kansas City was probably the worst example of a city with an AL team never getting to see Pujols since people in Kansas City aren't too far away from Busch Stadium...
I also think too much gets made of the AL dominance. Every year around interleague or the Allstar game all you hear about is how superior the AL is to the NL. The Allstar game's allure lies in its pure novelty. Nothing should really be taken from it and applied across baseball. Each player involved plays a few innings if that much and it happens once a year, generalizing about division strength off of one silly game isn't too smart. Interleague shows the "dominance" of one league a bit better although the NL is at a clear disadvantage when it comes to interleague- they lack the DH and even AL teams in NL parks usually find a way to sneak their DH's into lineups and at the worst have a very potent bat off the bench for a big situation.
Anthony - the bonus' for appearing in the AllStar game isn't a bad idea although I don't think they should be rewarded more for starting vs. being a reserve since the stupid fans vote lame players to start. Just a flat rate should be enough for the players...
Isn't there already usually a bonus for being an All-Star? I guess it's not straight from MLB and I guess that it's not given across the board, but I feel like players are already compensated. If they aren't, though, then that's a good idea.
As far as InterLeague, my arguments against it -- please don't forget -- center in large part on the availability of MLB.tv and MLB Extra Innings. As long as they are available to wide audiences at a fair price (about $150 for an entire season), I really don't think that InterLeague Play helps us see teams and players we wouldn't normally see.
I'm a National League fan, but I really don't much care which league serves homefield advantage in the All Star Game, so I'm not sure how much that will generate interest fan-wise. I also really don't care about the "Midsummer Classic," so maybe I'm wrong.
And, Paul, you bring up a great point. InterLeague Play is all about revenue, which is fine. Whatever. Baseball is a business and I don't really have a major problem with that. However, for example, when Hank Steinbrenner called out the NL telling them to adopt the DH, he could just as easily have called out MLB to abolish InterLeague Play. But he makes way too much money off it to do that.
Yea Hank Steinbrenner can shut up. If the AL abolished the DH it wouldn't bother me a whole lot but if the NL adopted the DH I'd be upset with it.
And yea interleague novelty is lost when MLBTV and Extra Innings packages are available although I've also read a bunch about their blackouts and how some people in baseball deadzones or at the midway point between a few teams get screwed. Lets also not forget there are ways to watch games online without subscribing to either of those two outlets.
I'd also like to add (for the 3 people who read the comments section), Webb is no longer starting the AS game for the NL. Since he pitched yesterday, I can't say this is a bad idea. In his stead, Ben Sheets will square off against Cliff Lee.
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