6 Players Who Have No Business Being In The 2014 MLB All Star Game

1) Derek Jeter (SS)
New York Yankees

I understand the reasoning behind WHY the fans voted him as the starting short stop, because it's a terrible and dumb reasoning why the fans did what they did. The fact that this is Derek Jeter's last year in the league is not a good enough reasoning to make him an All Star. In his prime, Derek Jeter was one of the best offensive shortstops in the game. Even with the benefit of sabermetrics hindsight, Derek Jeter has a great average, could take a walk, steal a base, and hit a home run when needed. He was an ideal top of the line up type of player. But with that being said, that version of Derek Jeter died a long time ago, and all we are left with in this beaten down shell of his former self. Jeter doesn't need this extra All Star game push to get him into the Hall of Fame, and by voting him in means that he stole a spot from a more deserving player. Among qualified players, Derek Jeter rates 11th out of 12 players in terms of WAR among AL short stops. Erick Aybar of the Angels and Alcides Escobar of the Royals are the top players in terms of WAR among AL shortstops, yet neither men are All Stars. In fact, making Escobar an All Star means that the Kansas City Royals have a lone representative, and we wouldn't need a reliever like Greg Holland be in the game. Speaking of relief pitchers...

2) Relief Pitchers (RP)
Multiple Teams

In the American League, middle reliever Dellin Betances (NYY) and closers  Sean Doolittle (OAK), Greg Holland (KC), and Glen Perkins (MIN) are All Stars and in the National League, middle relievers Pat Neshek (STL) (pitcured left) and Tony Watson (PIT) and closers Craig Kinbrel (ATL) and Aroldis Chapman (CIN) are All Stars. Who know isn't an All Star? Chris Sale, Dallas Keuchel, Garret Richards, Corey Kluber, and Rick Porcello. Those are the 5 candidates who can vote for for the last AL All Star spot. As Brian Bannister joked on Twitter, those five players would make one helluva a rotation. Sale, Richards, and Kluber are all top 10 in terms of AL WAR this year, and Kluber actually ranks 3rd. Chris Sale is one of the best pitchers in baseball and is going to receiver Cy Young votes by year's end. Yet none of these pitchers are All Stars because of our ridiculous need to praise middle relievers. As joked by Billy Beane in Moneyball, the reason pitchers are relievers is because they aren't good enough to be a starter. ESPN Dave Schoenfield tweeted out last night, "People, quit arguing the case for relief pitchers as All Stars. 26 relievers with 30+ IP have an ERA under 2.50. Not that special". No relief pitchers deserves to be an All Star, and the selections should just consists of starters. Also, who the fuck is Tony Watson?

The 4 Biggest 2014 MLB All Star Snubs

This past Sunday, both the American League and the National League filled out their 23 man roster for the All Star Game to be held at Target Field. Like with any All Star game, The Internet acted in outrage about certain players being left off of the roster. You're not going to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. However, there are certain omissions that are so egregious that the fans vitriol for that player's exclusion is justified. This post is dedicated to those exclusions.

Before I begin, I need to first clarify the definition of a "snub" because this is a term that seems to be thrown out willy-nilly. There are two parts to a "snub". The first part is that a player has performed so well that he deserves to go to the All-Star game, yet he was not selected. This first part is the part that most fans and critics seem to believe in. However, they ignore the second part. The second half to being considered a snub is that said player needs to have performed better and is the more worthy candidate than a player who was actually selected. Chicago Cubs 1B Anthony Rizzo and Rockies 1B Justin Morneau have played exceptionally well this year and have played so well that there would be no argument if they were considered All Stars. However, each league only selects two 1B as All Stars, and this year the NL has selected Arizona Diamondbacks 1B Paul Goldschmidt and Atlanta Braves 1B Freddie Freeman as its two first basemen to be playing in the All Star game. Both Goldschmidt and Freeman played better than Rizzo and Morneau in 2013 as well as in 2014. Goldschmidt and Freeman are without a doubt the two best first basemen in the National League. So while Anthony Rizzo and Justin Morneau are great players, they are not snubs.

Lastly, the All Star game matters. At the end of the day, we use the number of All Star games a player has attended as an argument for his legacy. If this was truly just a game for fun, then All Star snubs would just be excuses for people to argue. However, being selected to an All Star game is important for the players and how we evaluate players, so it's important to get these selections correct.

So with all of that being said, here are the 4 Biggest All Star Snubs This Year:

Chris Sale (SP)
Chicago White Sox

I'm getting the easy selection out of the way. Truthfully, I know that Chris Sale will eventually be selected to the All Star roster and he will eventually be considered a 2014 All Star in one way or another. A starting pitcher will get scratched due to injury or will pitch a full game too close to the Big Game itself that Chris Sale will eventually make the A.L. roster. But the fact that he wasn't selected from the getgo is downright ridiculous. Not only does a starting pitcher with a 2.9 WAR deserve to start over any freaking relief pitcher (especially Sean Doolittle- the Oakland A's would have 4 All Stars without him), but Sale is a better starting pitcher than half of the current roster. You can make a rational argument that Masahiro Tanaka, King Felix, Max Scherzer, and Yu Darvish are better pitchers than Sale (I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I can concede that argument), but there's absolutely no way that Jon Lester, Scott Kazmir, David Price, or Mark Buerhle are better pitchers than Sale. Even if you include the second half of 2013 (which I do) Chris Sale is an obvious All Star. Maybe it's just my personal Twitter feed, but the fact that The Internet is in an outrage over the Chris Sale snub means that Sale is going to be an All Star this year. Eventually.

2014 Weekly TV Recap (June 29 - July 5)

CURRENT SHOWS AIRING

Tuesday July 1

Tyrant (FX), Episode 2 "State of Emergency"

GRADE: C-

Brief Description: There is absolutely nothing compelling about "Tyrant"- which just goes to show you what poor writing this show has considering a dude got his dick bit off and a terrorist attack happened during this young season. Tyrant should be awesome and a man's man show; I mean what guy doesn't love "The Godfather"? Yet, I went through all of "State of Emergency" searching the internet on my phone and not paying attention to the episode. I've seen a lot of posts on the internet (from some very credible critics) hating on lead Adam Raynor's acting, and I don't think he's terrible in the least, but he's certainly not doing anything to draw me in either, and he's certainly no Al Pacino as Michael Corleone. I think the real problem with the show is that there isn't a single well-developed character, and everybody is just a two-dimensional stereotype. That means you don't care about any plot points, and you certainly don't care about any political message the show tries to deliver. Tyrant is produced by Howard Gordon who also produces Homeland, and Tyrant feels like another poor, terrible extension of what Homeland is now.

Analyzing The Samardzija and Hammel for Russell and Straily Trade

Somewhere between the late hours of July 4th and the early morning of July 5th, the Chicago Cubs sent over starting pitchers Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel to the Oakland A's in exchange for star SS prospect Addison Russell as well as OF prospect Billy McKinney and starting pitcher Dan Straily. Even though the Cubs now do not have the best rotation in baseball, I like this trade for both teams. Truthfully, you can't analyze a trade less than a day after it happens, and you need to the gift of hindsight to truly see which team won a trade. The last time the Cubs and A's traded with each other, the Cubs received fantasy stud SP Rich Harden, and the A's got 4 minor leaguers, including a young catching prospect named Josh Donaldson. At the time, it looked like the Cubs stole Harden away and was now in legitimate competition with the Milwaukee Brewers who had just acquired C.C. Sabathia. However, some six odd years later, the acquisition of Harden ultimately did nothing for the Cubs, and now Josh Donaldson is one of the best players in baseball. But with all of that being said, as of the making of the trade right now, I think it's a smart move by both sides.

7 Reasons Why Wrigley Field Is The Worst Stadium In Baseball

I'll fully admit that I am a White Sox fan writing this post, but I'm also not one of those White Sox fans that hates the Cubs either. I don't understand the rivalry between the North Siders and the South Siders seeing as they neither play in the same division or the same league, and I'm normally not on board with the Cubs bashing that White Sox fans tend to do. However, I've been to two Cubs games within the past 10 days (I got free tickets to one game and the second game was for a friend's bachelor party) and both were at Wrigley Field, and I can tell you from first hand experience how terrible Wrigley Field is. Cubs fans will tell you that any "problems" with the stadium is because it's classic and a tradition, but in reality, it's just old and outdated. Don't get me wrong, there are some excellent qualities to Wrigley Field including The Ivy, they serve one of my favorite beers (312) for only 50 cents more than a Bud Light, and the stadium faces the correct direction so it has that fantastic Chicago skyline in the background (something U.S. Cellular stupidly doesn't do). However, objectively speaking, as a whole, Wrigley Field is terrible and it has the worst stadium in baseball.

Why Every Fantasy Football Player Needs To Join A 3 Team League

A few years ago, myself and two of my friends were driving down to Bourbonnais, IL to see the Chicago Bears at training camp. One of my friends mentioned that he joined a three team fantasy football team at work and he wanted our advice. After the laughing subsided, we inquired further as to what our friend was doing joining a league that only had two other members in it. At least the fantasy football league in The League has EIGHT members in it! Our friend stated that some of his co-workers wanted to join a fantasy football league at work, but he couldn't find enough co-workers to start an actual league, so they started a three-team league. Instead of drafting individual players, a manager would draft an entire team, and said manager could play any player from the team he had drafted. So if you drafted the Denver Broncos, you could start Peyton Manning, Demaryius Thomas, Wes Welker, Montee Ball, Emmanuel Sanders, Julius Thomas, Matt Prater, and Denver's DST.

Even though our initial reaction was that of disdain, we could not stop discussing this three team league the entire car ride to Bourbannais. We discussed strategy and which particular teams are good and which are not. By the time the car had arrived at Bears training camp, the entire car wanted to do our own three team league. So while myself and my two friends were waiting to get into the facilities, we conducted our own three team league draft.

Cut to Saturday night, I was out at a bar with the friend who originally told us about this three-team league idea (his name is Irwin and you can follow him on Twitter @irwinweiner) and another football fanatic friend named Ben (you can follow him on Twitter @bennieb33) and this notion of a three team league came out. And wouldn't you know it, we all loved the idea so much that we decided to conduct our league again this year. And trust me, you're going to want to start your own league as well.

Grading The Best TV Shows of the Year (So Far)

2014 is only halfway over, yet there have been a litany of great television shows that have aired. Many of them I've seen, a good a majority I have not. We live in an era of television that is classified by quantity over anything else, and seeing as I am just one man, I can only watch so much. But I have watched a buttload of shows, and here are my thoughts on every television show I've seen this year.


Community (NBC)
Season: 5
Created By: Dan Harmon
Original Start Date: January 2, 2014
Grade: A

Brief Description: While I was in the minority feeling that Dan Harmon deserved to get kicked off of his own show after the atrocious Season 3, I'm glad he was brought back for Season 5. Season 4 show runners Moses Port & David Guarascio did their best Dan Harmon impression, but easily came up short creating a soulless monster. Harmon dialed back the insane extremes he took his characters to in Season 3 (mainly Abed) in this new season, and in turn created one of the smartest and funniest sitcoms around. #RIPCommunity.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)
Season: 1b
Created By: Dan Goor & Michael Schur
Original Start Date: January 7, 2014
Grade: A

Brief Description: Brooklyn Nine-Nine was one of the smartest and funniest sitcoms of 2014 and is competing against Community for the best comedy of the year. Like most sitcoms, it took a little bit to get its bearings and its voice straightened out, but those stumbling blocks came in 2013. What the FOX sitcom aired in 2014 was a well-defined and hilarious work of art filled with three-dimensional characters. Based upon how strong Season 1 was, I have no qualms with the rookie comedy wining the Golden Globe last year for Best Comedy Show, and I hope it gets a handful of Emmy nominations in a few weeks.