Remington: How’d he get in and I didn’t? Undeserving All-Star snubs

From Alex Remington at The Hardball Times on July 17, 2018:

Every year around this time, there’s a lot of interest in the outcome of an All-Star selection process so Byzantine as to approach randomness: fans choose their favorite position players in a beauty contest, while players nominate pitchers and reserves, and the Commissioner’s Office backfills around a mixture of injuries and demurrals. For example, this year, the Giants declared that Buster Posey would skip the All-Star Game to receive treatment for an injury that he has been playing through. That didn’t help perhaps the biggest remaining snub of the 2018 All-Star selections, Andrelton Simmons — he’s in the American League, Posey in the NL.

Blake Snell might have laid claim to the biggest snub title, but Snell’s teammate Chris Archer led a social media campaign lobbying for him, and he was named a sub for Corey Kluber. Simmons, meanwhile, may have the best career stats of any active player who has never made it to the All-Star Game. Still, his is not a unique circumstance. Inevitably, every year, a passel of players will be named to their respective rosters despite having far inferior stats to other players who were left off. In the 85 years of Midsummer Classics, it has happened rather a lot, which makes for some interesting contrasts.

Read the full article here: https://www.fangraphs.com/tht/howd-he-get-in-when-i-didnt-less-deserving-all-stars-and-undeserved-snubs/



Originally published: July 20, 2018. Last Updated: July 20, 2018.