WHAT????!?!?

You're shitting me. How did they overcome his absence? Shortstops with no range who can rake to the tune of .260/.324/.324 don't just grow on trees, you know. He's actually accumulated -0.1 Baseball-reference WAR so far this year. The Yankees should have been expected to get ever so slightly better simply by having him get hurt.

So of course he's going to start the All-Star game, why wouldn't he? And of course there are people out there (who aren't from Yonkers or Jersey) more than willing to justify his All-Star selection, why wouldn't they? YOU KNOW WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT IT'S THE ALL *STAR* GAME- ONLY STARS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO PLAY. AND ONLY GUYS WHO HAVE PLAYED IN THE ALL STAR GAME BEFORE COUNT AS STARS, WHICH CLOSES THE LOOP AND MAKES THIS LINE OF LOGIC FLAWLESS:

AL shortstop for life: Despite a subpar season, Trenton Thunder shortstop Derek Jeter was voted into his sixth straight Midsummer Classic and 11th overall. Just as you're sure to read plenty of profiles of Vogelsong's time in Japan, you're also going to hear plenty of bellyaching about Jeter's spot on the team with a 77 OPS+. Whatever. It's always been my position that the All-Star game should feature "stars" and there isn't a bigger one in baseball right now than Derek Jeter. With all apologies to Asdrubal Cabrera -- who could start the game anyway if Jeter isn't up to the task — no one's tuning into the game to watch Asdrubal Cabrera.

There "isn't a bigger (star) in baseball right now than Derek Jeter"? Fuck you, Yahoo Sports blogger. Regardless of the validity of this line of logic, you can't say that. I'm not having it. Even if you make "how many fans know who he is" your #1 qualification for stardom, Jeter's almost certainly not even the biggest star on his own team. He's probably in the top 10 in the league, but still. C'mon.

Now, Chris W and I discussed this today and we agree that the ASG is for the fans (insert snarky comment about how stupid it is for the game to determine WS home field advantage here), so if they want to see Jeter, they should vote to see Jeter. Of course, Chris then went on to make a number of important points that supersede that point:

1) Fans don't really know what's best for them or for the game. Which is better for both: letting the fans restrict themselves to a narrow and aging base of superstars who are about to be put out to pasture, or forcing the fans to acknowledge that younger better players like Asdrubal Cabrera are budding stars who are really actually good at baseball in the year 2011 and will be for the next 10 years? But don't bother telling any of that to Selig and his merry band of asshole owners, because

2) MLB is run by a bunch of fucking morons who let fans determine who gets coverage. The attention balance in MLB as compared to the NFL blows my mind. I shake my head in sadness at the fact that Colts vs. Jaguars or Chiefs vs. Chargers can get great ratings on Monday Night Football (provided those teams are playing well of course), but if a baseball game involves any team other than the Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, or Cubs, 90% of sports fans don't give a shit. This is partially on media giants like ESPN and FOX, but more significantly it's on the league itself, which rams the GREATEST RIVALRY IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS EVER (you know which teams I'm referring to) down our throats every year at the expense of developing any number of other available and compelling storylines. Fuck you, MLB. Fuck you with an oar, Bud Selig. You suck ass. And of course, on both the fan and ownership sides, the problem is accurately generalized by Chris when he points out that

3) The problem with sports (and really all of entertainment... but I'll skip ranting on a broader subject because this isn't Gruntland) today is that people won't let their perceived enjoyment now be lowered even if that means they'll be able to enjoy things more tomorrow.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. And that pretty much sums up how talking about this with Chris/writing this post made me feel. Good luck to you in the ASG, Jeter. I hope you somehow ground into twenty double plays and get a standing ovation after each of them.

I Need To Find A Way To Record And Play Back Audio Off My XM Radio

Because as I'm quickly learning, their "MLB Home Plate" channel is a fucking gold mine. And I want to be able to quote their fantastically dunderheaded analysts verbatim.

Like I've posted about a couple of times recently, you've got Rob Dibble running his mouth for three hours a day in the afternoon. I've also recently gotten into their morning show, which features Mark Patrick and Buck Martinez. The two shared a great exchange this morning, re: (who else?) scrappy white guys. This is all paraphrased because, as the title states, I don't have a way to record any of this nonsense yet. Mark will be (mostly) playing the role of "just the facts" guy, while Buck stands tall as the grit-loving quasi color commentator.

Mark: Interesting development for the Cubs yesterday- Lou Pinella dropped Alfonso Soriano to number two in the lineup and plugged Ryan Theriot in at the leadoff spot. Now... I understand Lou is trying to juggle around whoever he's got, and Theriot is a guy who plays hard. But I just don't know about having a guy at the top of the order who batted .266 with a .326 on base percentage last year.

Buck: (flustered, wanting to disagree without making a big deal about things because he loves small white guys) Well... yeah... but people would say the same about David Eckstein.

Yes, they'd say that. And they'd be right. It's sad- people who love Eckstein are now using him as justification for putting other short white guys who aren't very good into the same role he used to fill. This will inevitably lead to some people using Barry Bonds as an example that proves Shawne Merriman is a victim and people are only attacking him because he's black.

as usual, jayson stark takes things 5 or 6 steps too far

resident espn number cruncher stark recently wrote a column about who the best NL shortshop has been so far this season (and thus should be picked as the all-star game starter). the premise being, of course, that many of them have played very well thus making it difficult to choose. an interesting enough topic for an article. stark brings up jj hardy, jose reyes, hanley ramirez, and jimmy rollins. good, great, grand. theres youre whole article and discussion, right? wrong. rather than quit while hes ahead, stark goes buck wild and basically roll calls every single guy eligible.

And we haven't even touched on a fifth shortstop who is batting .331 (Edgar Renteria).

actually a very good choice, maybe better than rollins, but dont you think its getting a little crowded here? jayson, maybe you should just take it easy, get up, walk around, not write anything for a little while. (imaginary jayson stark, drunkenly slurring his speech in my brain: "ILL TELL YOU WHEN IVE HAD ENOUGH!")

Or a sixth shortstop (Rafael Furcal) who just ripped off three straight four-hit games.

currently OPS+ing 97, whereas the first five guys are all over 120 (and all but rollins are over 140). but sure, lets decide the all star team based on 3 games in may.

Or a future Hall of Famer (Omar Vizquel),

sadly, this actually is often a good all-star qualification from the fans' perspective. anyone with a brain, however, knows hitting .247 with a .290 OBP should not get you into the all star game. im pretty sure stark has a brain.

your incumbent World Series MVP (David Eckstein),

comically irrelevant. he's also OPSing a shade under .600. but just because jayson brought him up, im raising the lunchpail alert to yellow. (it had been down to green for just a few hours there.)

two rising stars (Troy Tulowitzki and Stephen Drew),

neither of whom is close to being an actual star yet.

a guy with seven home runs (Alex Gonzalez)

and an OPS+ of 101.

or three of the the best defensive shortstops on earth (Adam Everett, Khalil Greene and Jack Wilson).

all the guys on this list are some of the best defensive shortstops on earth. really says something about these three that this was the only nice thing stark could think of to say about them.

So go ahead. Fill out your ballot. You can't go wrong.

i would say: you can't go wrong, as long as you pick reyes, rollins, renteria, hardy, or ramirez. i picture stark shouting out this list to his fellow espn writers howard dean-style, naming them rapidly in a frenzied tone. that would be funny.