NL All Star Pitchers

Didn't watch a full minute of the State Farm Home Run Derby brought to you by State Farm last night. For one thing, No Reservations was on (the TV show, not the Catherine Zeta Jones romcom), and I'm just about addicted to Anthony Bourdain's narrative. For another thing, I just couldn't stomach the thought of listening to Berman, Morgan and Phillips for how ever many hours the thing drags on. Also, and most importantly, I just don't care at all about glorified batting practice. Home runs are fun and all, but they're really exciting only in the context of the rest of the game. They change a game in one swing. They're a release from the tension built up from the batter and pitcher's cat and mouse game. They're an exclamation point in a sport of long, thoughtful sentences. They're not all that interesting on their own. The ball goes up, the ball comes down, it's like a driving range with more ads. Run it against a chance to ogle delicious looking Columbian street food, I know what I'm gonna watch every time, and it wasn't brought to me by State Farm.

Anyhoo, lemme finish up my NL All-Star team:

Starters
Name Win Shares/WARP3/VORP/ERA+
Lincecum 14/8.7/41.5/166
Volquez 12/9.1/37.2/195
Haren 13/7.8/37.5/166
Zambrano 14/7.6/36.8/157
Sheets 12/6.4/38.3/150
Hamels 11/8.3/39.4/140
Cook 12/8.0/30.4/129
Webb 11/7.5/28.0/140
Peavy 9/7.5/31.8/157
Santana 9/6.4/31.3/144
Dempster 10/6.0/28.0/137
Hudson 9/6.2/33.9/130
Jurrjens 9/5.2/27.6/136
Lohse 9/4.3/27.7/124

Really tough call for the final spot. The biggest gap between the two stat lines, as I see it, is Ben Sheets' 10% advantage in ERA+. A lot of deserving pitchers aren't gonna make the cut.

Starting Pitcher: Tim Lincecum
Reserve #1: Edison Volquez
Reserve #2: Danny Haren
Reserve #3: Carlos Zambrano
Reserve#4: Ben Sheets

Relievers
Name Win Shares/WARP3/VORP/ERA+
Lidge 8/5.8/18.2/393
Bell 8/5.6/19.1/180
Cordero 8/6.2/14.1/194
Saito 7/6.2/14.8/201
Wood 8/6.0/13.2/148
Kuo* 7/4.5/23.5/260
Burton 7/3.9/15.5/200
Rauch 7/5.8/12.1/149
Gregg 7/6.1/10.6/159
Buchholz 7/4.0/14.3/251
Lyon 7/5.1/11.4/185
Park* 6/4.3/19.9/166
Durbin 6/3.5/19.0/234
McClellan 6/3.2/15.5/143
Madson 4/2.5/15.8/159
*- started some games

Pretty tight at the top here, but Lidge and Bell look about right to me. Also, I haven't actually seen Chan Ho Park using PEDs, but something sure smells funny about his season.

Starting Closer (?): Brad Lidge
Reserve: Heath Bell

And that's it. 25 representatives from each league. I think that's a halfway decent attempt to award selections based on merit. I'm sure there are better methods out there, but in most cases the best players at each position were fairly obvious to me. Now I'm off to punch holes in my ballots, and only a few weeks too late.