TORONTO – Hours before Aaron Sanchez delivered the first pitch of Monday’s game, Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons caught up with his Kansas City Royals counterpart, Ned Yost. Among the topics that came up: which Blue Jays deserve inclusion on the American League All-Star team, to be announced by Yost, the AL manager, Tuesday evening.
Given the number of Blue Jays putting together big seasons, the conversation could have been a long one.
Josh Donaldson deserves to be selected given that he has combined 20 home runs with excellent defence and baserunning to generate more wins above replacement than any MLB position player not named Mike Trout. It’d be equally hard to exclude Edwin Encarnacion, who has 22 home runs and an MLB-leading 76 RBI after a recent surge. And with 15 home runs and an OPS above .900 Michael Saunders has also emerged as an impact bat.
Then there are the pitchers. Sanchez, Marco Estrada and J.A. Happ have been among the league’s more effective starters with ERAs of 2.94, 2.93 and 3.54, respectively.
“All three of those guys get mentioned and you can’t forget [Roberto] Osuna, either,” Gibbons said.
On paper that’s a long list of players worthy of serious consideration, even if none are projected to be voted in by fans. And it probably can’t hurt that Gibbons was Yost’s bench coach in Kansas City from 2010-11, right?
In reality, though, the selection process is far more complex. Two rounds of decision making occur before Yost sees the roster, as players and fans have their say first. Only then do Yost and NL manager Terry Collins get involved.
“I don’t choose the All-Star team,” Yost said. “The fans choose the starting lineup, then the players choose the majority of the rest of the lineup. I’ll have to fill in spots where teams aren’t represented.”
After ensuring that all 15 AL teams have All-Stars, Yost has to make sure the roster fits together logically. For example, the AL will need to pick a second catcher, even though Kansas City’s Salvador Perez is the lone AL backstop having a banner year. After all that? There’s not a lot of freedom. Yost doesn’t actually choose many All-Stars himself.
“Probably four,” he says. “Maybe five. It’s not a whole lot.”
The process could exclude deserving All-Stars such as Carlos Correa because the Minnesota Twins need an All-Star and infielder Eduardo Nunez looks like their best candidate. Similarly, if Stephen Vogt makes the team to serve as a second catcher and represent the Athletics, that means there’s one less spot for the likes of Saunders, Jason Kipnis and Kyle Seager.
Barring any last-minute surprises, Yost had his roster “pretty much set” as of Monday afternoon. Maybe Sanchez’s eight-inning gem tipped the balance for Yost, maybe not. The right-hander knows that managers only have so much say, though he’d embrace the chance to represent the Blue Jays next week.
“That’s everything. That’s why you play this game: to be the best, at least I do,” Sanchez said. “We’ll see. I try not to have my focus there. If it happens, it happens, but I try to control what I can control.”
Realistically, Yost doesn’t have all that much control, either. Two of the spots at his disposal went to position players on teams that weren’t represented in player or fan voting, and deserving candidates will be snubbed as a result.
“The hardest part is it’s a 34-man roster,” Yost said. “I wish it was 40. You’ve got so many guys that deserve All-Star recognition that you just don’t have spots for.”
If there’s any consolation for those snubbed, it’s that MLB always adds players to replaced injured stars and pitchers who are unable to participate after Sunday starts.
| Year | Number of MLB All-Stars, including replacements |
|---|---|
| 1965 | 53 |
| 1975 | 57 |
| 1985 | 60 |
| 1995 | 61 |
| 2005 | 68 |
| 2015 | 76 |
We’ll know Tuesday night whether the roster machinations favour the Blue Jays. In the meantime, we can safely say this much: Performance alone suggests they deserve to be well-represented in San Diego.
