Thankfully, MLB’s annual All-Star Game no longer makes an impact on the actual playoffs, but the event has its inherent shortcomings, one of which is that the limited roster size cannot fit all the talent from each league. For example, the average wRC+ of the 20 National League position players going to Cleveland is about 135, while the average WAR total of the All-Stars is about 3.1 for the position players. When we exclude the two outliers, the MVP-caliber outfielders in Christian Yelich and Cody Bellinger, from the equation, the average wRC+ is about 130 and the average WAR total is just 2.9.
While I think every NL All-Star selection does deserve to be on the team, there is one blatant name missing: Los Angeles Dodgers infielder Max Muncy. The lefty masher is one of the key cogs in a Dodgers offense that ranks first in the NL in, among almost every offensive stat, wRC+ and WAR.
In fact, Muncy is their second-best player behind the aforementioned Bellinger with 3.1 WAR and a 142 wRC+ - both numbers exceeding (if we don’t round) both the averages and medians of current NL All-Star selections. Again, I’m not arguing that Muncy is a “snub,” but that roster sizes should be expanded as to allow for more of MLB’s talented players. Furthermore, the team with the best run differential and record in baseball deserves to have more All-Stars than a team barely above .500 in the Colorado Rockies.
So, this is an All-Star Preview for the 2020 game. Muncy’s name recognition should only grow after his clutch World Series home run last fall, but the National League is absolutely loaded with infielders so I’m not confident that fans would vote Muncy in if he continues his seemingly-sustainable success. Hopefully he is chosen as a reserve to play in front of his home crowd and flaunt his skills.
While Max Muncy is no snub due to the loaded NL roster in 2019, be prepared for him to make some noise at next year’s All-Star Game.
May your pennants fly forever.
-Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment