Cleveland Indians Midseason Awards: Who Takes Home the Hardware?

Well, the first half of the season is officially over (though the 50 percent mark was more than a week ago). The All-Star Break is a good time to reflect on the first 89 games of the season before we look ahead to the trade deadline and the pennant race.

So I decided to hop on the bandwagon.

Without further ado, here are your Cleveland Indians first-half awards, as voted by the one-man democracy of the WBWAA (Wahoo Blues Writers Association of America).

Most Valuable Player: Asdrubal Cabrera. Like this was even a choice. Among Indians with at least 200 PAs, Cabrera leads in homers (14), runs (55), RBI (51), steals (12), average (.293), slugging (.489), OPS (.836), wRC+ (137), WPA (102), and WAR (3.3). And he’s done it while playing shortstop. No doubt the All-Star starting shortstop has been our best player.
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2011 MLB All-Star Game: How Great Would AL All-Stars Be in Single-A?

As you may have heard, tonight is the 2011 MLB All-Star Game. Sure, it’s an exhibition game, but it’s a night of glamour and excitement, of marquee names and star-studded lineups, and home-field advantage in the World Series is on the line.

Even if no one’s playing at 100 percent—sure, you’re on national TV, but no one’s going to risk getting injured in a game that doesn’t count—the competition is better than in any other game. I’d hate to face Jered Weaver even in batting practice.

So as the All-Star hitters prepare to suit up against the best pitchers in the game, I started to wonder: how well would they do against some of the worst arms in professional baseball?

Using Jeff Sackmann’s Minor League Equivalency calculator, we can find out.

I found MLE numbers for each of the 23 position players on the AL All-Star team (NL to come tomorrow)—starters, reserves, and sit-outs—as they would look if, in a Rachel Phelpsian scheme, they were all suddenly demoted to Single-A. I then projected their counting stats over a  full 139-game season.

Here’s how the All-Star starters’ numbers would look over a full season in the lower minors:

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MLB All-Star Teams Revealed: Derek Jeter over Asdrubal Cabrera is Completely Indefensible

At 12:04 p.m. on Sunday, it was announced that New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was the fans’ choice to be the American League’s starter in the 2011 All-Star Game next week.

We voters have made a huge mistake.

It wasn’t much of a surprise. Jeter had amassed a more-than-500,000-vote lead over second-place finisher Asdrubal Cabrera as of two days before the voting ended, and he’s far too popular a player to lose a lead like that in under 72 hours. Cabrera still made the team, but that doesn’t make picking Jeter as the starter any less wrong.

Cabrera wasn’t the unanimous top pick at shortstop. Jhonny Peralta is off to a torrid start and Alexei Ramirez is quietly putting on a show in Chicago. Heck, Yunel Escobar’s having himself a nice season for the Blue Jays.

But Jeter? To everyone who voted for the Yankees’ captain, I ask with all due respect: are you crazy?

To illustrate the objective inexplicability of the voters’ choice, I’ve listed Jeter and Cabrera’s statistics in more than 30 categories—traditional and sabermetric, popular and esoteric, meaningful and trivial—so you can see for yourself: (more…)

Asdrubal Cabrera, Chris Perez to Represent Indians in All-Star Game

Two Cleveland Indians players were named to the 2011 American League All-Star team on the All-Star Game selection show today. (more…)

Which Cleveland Indians Deserve Your All-Star Votes?

Less than two weeks remain before the 2011 MLB All-Star voting closes, and Cleveland fans across the country are sure to be punching their ballots for Tribe players to get as many Indians on the AL team as possible.

Believe it or not, several Indians are already among the voting leaders as of the most recent update. But before we cast our final ballots, it behooves us to ask: what Cleveland players really should appear in the Midsummer Classic.

According to yesterday’s Baseball Prospectus playoff odds update, the Indians have a 15% chance of making the playoffs, meaning they have a roughly 4% chance of reaching the World Series. That’s a real, if small, chance that the outcome of the All-Star Game and its prize of home field advantage in the Fall Classic will matter to the Indians.

With that in mind, blindly punching the ticket for the Tribe’s players might not be in the Indians’ best interest. To help you make your decisions, I’ve categorized the nine Cleveland players on the ballot by how much hometown bias it would take to justify picking them. Happy voting!

Pull the Lever

Asdrubal Cabrera, Shortstop (second, 1,647,802). He leads all AL shortstops in average (.296), slugging percentage (.507), OPS (.850), and wRC+ (142). Alexei Ramirez’ big advantage with the glove probably makes him the better player (he leads Cabrera in WAR, 3.1 to 2.4), but Droobs’ star power, presence on the most surprising team in baseball, and clutch hitting make him a solid choice. And someone’s got to stop Derek Jeter. (more…)

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