Simple Solution for All-Star Game
Most of this comes from a comment I made when Sports Dawg wrote on An Opinion On Sports about expanding the All-Star rosters after Clint Hurdle and Terry Francona nearly had to use David Wright and J.D. Drew as pitchers due to a limited number of innings available from the All-Star pitchers.
Sports Dawg isn’t the only one to make the suggestion as I’ve heard a lot of people talk about expanding the rosters because “now the game counts.”
However, I have to respectfully disagree.
If the game counts and is supposed to be important because of its determination of home field advantage in the World Series, then teams should make their players available to fully participate. By that, I mean there shouldn’t be concerns that a pitcher threw two days earlier.
If you are the Arizona Diamondbacks, you are leading the NL West, and you think you have a shot at making the World Series, don’t throw Brandon Webb two days before the All-Star game. (The same could be said for Scott Kazmir and the Tampa Bay Rays.) In my mind there are three options the D’Backs (or Rays) could have considered:
Option 1: Move Webb’s pre-All-Star start up earlier in the week. This would take some pre-planning when you know a pitcher is likely to be an All-Star, but it could easily be done — on July 6, Webb could have went on three days rest and then his last start prior to the All-Star Game could have been on July 11 giving him three days rest prior to the All-Star Game on Tuesday, which would leave Webb fully capable of throwing 2 or 3 innings in the All-Star Game.
Option 2: Skip Webb’s start just before the All-Star Game so that he is capable of going multiple innings in the home field determiner.
Option 3: Only throw Webb in limited action for a couple of innings in the Sunday start prior to the All-Star Game. Using this option, Webb could have thrown 2-4 innings, depending on pitch count, against the Phillies on Sunday and Dan Haren could have thrown 2-3, again based on pitch count.
Using any of these three options, gives the National League a much better chance of breaking the American League’s current streak of All-Star domination, gives your league the best opportunity to win your team home field advantage, which by looking at the home/road splits of almost every team in the league you can see the importance, for the World Series, and gives the fans a chance to see Webb instead of Aaron Cook for three innings even though Cook did a great job.
Of course, the All-Star Game shouldn’t “count,” and if it does count, it should be managed just like a regular season game instead of “let’s try to get some time for everyone,” but all of that is a separate issue.
What do you think?
| 1.9 (2 people) |
July 21st, 2008 at 1:55 am
The whole idea of the all-star game being mid-season is a little weird to me. I love that it gives us some baseball during those four days off midseason, but the game has always been bleh to me anyway (maybe that’s because the Royals haven’t had too many All-Stars, who knows?).
Anyway, the game shouldn’t mean anything. The game is for the fans and everyone wants to see their favorite players. I don’t especially like how players are chosen either. Under the current system fans in New York and Boston are going to get the most players chosen, even when they don’t deserve it *cough* Varitek *cough*. Those two statements do go against each other… but what do I care?
Here is how it should be:
* The game is held a week after the World Series.
* The fans get 25% of the vote, players get 25%, coaches get 25% and sports writers get 25%.
* During the four days off mid-season, the homerun durby and celebrity softball are held as usual. Maybe something else can be held during this time as well. Perhaps league-wide hotdog racing…. who cares?
* The World Series alternates every year.
* NO TIES in the All-Star game. Everyone is yelling boohoo it would have sucked if Wright and Drew pitched… You know what, I wanted that to happen! It would have been awesome.