My 2015 All Stars

The All Star rosters were announced today, and as usual there are arguments to be made for and against a handful of players on and not on the teams. This seems like a particularly questionable year, given the selections, with no good reason for why several odd decisions were made.

My rationale is rather simple. I make my rosters in three steps:

1. Pick the best player at each position
2. Pick the best player off of each team
3. Fill in the remaining roster spots based on need and ability

It's really that simple, and not too hard to do with the 32-player All Star rosters these days. Without further ado, my rosters:

Starters

	AL	NL
C 1B 2B SS 3B OF OF OF DH	Salvador Perez, KC Miguel Cabrera, DET Ian Kinsler, DET Erick Aybar, LAA Josh Donaldson, OAK       Mike Trout, LAA Alex Gordon, KC Adam Jones, BAL Jose Bautista, TOR	Jonathan Lucroy, MIL Paul Goldschmidt, ARI Chase Utley, PHI Troy Tulowitzki, COL Todd Frazier, CIN Giancarlo Stanton, MIA Andrew McCutchen, PIT Carlos Gomez, MIL Yasiel Puig, LAD

Reserves

Edwin Encarnacion, DH, TOR   Nelson Cruz, DH, BAL Yan Gomes, C, CLE Derek Norris, C, OAK Jose Abreu, 1B, CHW Joe Mauer, 1B, MIN Jose Altuve, 2B, HOU Alcides Escobar, SS, KC Derek Jeter, SS, NYY Kyle Seager, 3B, SEA Lorenzo Cain, OF, KC Yoenis Cespedes, OF, OAK

Devin Mesoraco, C, CIN Yadier Molina, C, STL Buster Posey, C, SF Anthony Rizzo, 1B, CHC Freddie Freeman, 1B, ATL Dee Gordon, 2B, LAD Daniel Murphy, 2B, NYM Jhonny Peralta, SS, STL Matt Carpenter, 3B, STL Anthony Rendon, 3B, WAS Billy Hamilton, OF, CIN Hunter Pence, OF, SF Justin Upton, OF, ATL

Pitching Staff

Yu Darvish, TEX Sean Doolittle, OAK Felix Hernandez, SEA Corey Kluber, CLE Jon Lester, BOS Glen Perkins, MIN David Price, TB Chris Sale, CHW Max Scherzer, DET Masahiro Tanaka, NYY               Koji Uehara, BOS

Madison Bumgarner, SF Aroldis Chapman, CIN Johnny Cueto, CIN Clayton Kershaw, LAD Craig Kimbrel, ATL Jonathan Papelbon, PHI Stephen Strasburg, WAS Huston Street, SD Adam Wainwright, STL Jordan Zimmerman, WAS

In all I had 11 different selections in the AL and 10 in the NL, which strikes me as a larger amount than usual.

Some of the differences are driven by my belief that the All Star game is an exhibition - hence the selection of Joe Mauer*, for instance. There are several more deserving players based on production so far this season; however, I was down to the last spot on the AL roster and realized that this player isn't likely to play. Who else would receive such a warm and memorable ovation in Minnesota than Joe Mauer? Same goes for Derek Jeter. There are spots to manufacture warm moments on a 32-player roster designed for an exhibition game.

*Also, Mauer is on the DL. I would replace him with another Twin, Brian Dozier.

The other difference between me and the real rosters are the pitching staff sizes. I favor smaller ones (I went with 11 in the AL and 10 in the NL) because there are only so many innings to go around.  Although many good pitchers got left off both rosters, both hit the point where a handful of players were roughly equivalently good. The cream of the crop more or less made the squad.

I'll assume everyone agrees that these rosters are perfect unless someone speaks up in the comment section.