Posnanski ripped in Chicago

I think where Cowley went wrong was in saying that someone of Posnanski's status was "trying to make a name for himself."

My guess - and it is pure speculation - is that after years of being essentially ignored by the national media, the White Sox beat media is perhaps growing a little bit testy about all the outsiders parachuting in?

 

Right. If all the garbage teams, those with no legit all-stars, all have a shortstop as their best player, Guillen should pick seven shortstops? How ridiculous. Talk about being unable to see the "big picture".

Posnanski's column came across as bush-league, real small-town. Guillen's job is to win the game, or at least make sure he has enough arms to finish it. Not worry about the feelings of the piss-ant Royals. Four All-Star arms throwing on Sunday - hell yeah, he better take some a pitcher from one of the "throw-away" teams.

 

Now imagine this, you're Ozzie Guillen, your team could be in the World Series... the game is tied in the 11th inning and all you've got left is Mark fucking Redman to try to get you home field for the 7th game of the World Series.
If that happened and Redman got rocked, would Ozzie rip Selig (andFOX) for making a bullshit exhibition game "mean something?"

 

He's be a better pitching choice than David De Jesus, Posnanski's pick.

 

Redman was being ridiculed nationally for being perhaps the worst All-Star ever. It would have been bush league for the KC Star not to have a column about the issue.

 

How about Ron Karkovice's column: "Dating For Ugly Borderline Albinos?"

 

Why couldn't Ozzie have taken a position player from the Royals -- in place of say, Gary Mathews Jr -- and then taken Liriano or Schilling? If he needed another arm so bad, wouldn't it have made sense to actually get a good one instead of Redman?

 

yes

 

Redman just threw another gem. I think he has 7 straight wins. Maybe 6.

Just sayin.

 

Here's how it was explained to me by a friend from the MLB office:

Since Alex Rios and Robinson Cano were both injured before the All-Star team was announced, their replacements [Gary Matthews, Jr. and Jose Lopez] were determined by the Commisioner's office, not by Ozzie Guillen.  MLB picked Matthews and Lopez because they were next on the list from the players vote.

If MLB had named either Mark Grudzielanek as the replace for Cano or named David DeJesus as the replace for Rios, Redman wouldn't have been picked by Guillen.  This also would have allowed Guillen a chance to name Liriano or Verlander to the team. Unfortunately, no Royals player finished high in the players vote.  Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina was never options since both of them are scheduled to start on Sunday and 4 of the 5 starting pitchers who were chosen by the players vote also are scheduled to start on Sunday.   The players voted Kenny Rogers, Roy Halladay, Jose Contreras, Johan Santana, and Scott Kazmir on the All-Star team.  Only Kenny Rogers isn't scheduled to start on Sunday.

Twenty-five of the 32 roster spots on the all-star team are not chosen by the all-star manager. Fans vote in the starting 8 position players and the sponsored Monster 2006 All-Star Final Vote.  The player vote determines 16 roster spots: the backups for the starting 8 position players and 8 pitchers for the team.  Five starting pitchers and three relievers.

Guillen was able to pick 7 players.  At least four of them had to be pitchers to comply with the rule requiring 12-man pitching staffs for the All-Star game. This rule was added after the infamous tie game in Milwaukee when the teams ran out of pitchers.  Also, four of Guillen's choices had to be representatives from the Indians [Grady Sizemore], Orioles [Miguel Tejada], A's [Barry Zito], and Royals [Mark Redman].  With his three other picks, Guillen chose Bobby Jenks, Paul Konerko, and Mark Buehrle.

Guillen could have chosen a position player from the Royals but that would have meant either Sizemore or Tejada would have been left out and replaced by a pitcher from their respective team.  Is there an Indians or Orioles pitcher worth naming to the all-star game this year in place of Sizemore or Tejada? Who's going to explain to Orioles fans and Miguel Tejada (the MVP of last year's all-star game) that Kris Benson or Eric Bedard needed to be the Orioles representative because the team with the worst record in the league needed a better representative than Mark Redman? The only other option Guillen had was to leave off Paul Konerko, the only actual first baseman from his squad since both David Ortiz (voted in by the fans) and Jim Thome (voted in by the players) have played a combined 10 games this year at first base.

The main cause for this mess is the 25 roster spots that are predetermined by the votes of the fans and the players. Nine roster spots chosen by the fans and 16 spots determined by the players. They, players and fans, choose too many players from the popular teams. Fans overload the starting lineup with  Red Sox and Yankee players. (Thanks, ESPN.)  The players vote picked 5 Blue Jays and 3 White Sox players as reserves or pitchers.  The players also chose a Yankee [Mariano Duncan Rivera] and a Red Sox [Papelbon].  So 10 of the 16 spots the players voted for were taken up by only 4 teams. It's even worse the years when the all-star game is played in an AL city when there's a DH position on the ballot.  Then the manager has only 5 picks and he still has to make sure that each team is represented by a player.  Ask Terry Francona how difficult it was for him last year trying to comply with all the MLB requirements with only 5 picks at his disposal.

The solution to this problem is to either increase the roster spots by two players or cut back on the number of spots chosen by the players vote to give the manager more flexibility in filling out the roster. MLB over reacted to Joe Torre's practice of stacking the team with Yankees and really gave future all-star managers a difficult problem in completing a roster with all their rules.  Eliminating the "Final Vote" is also an alternative but we know that won't happen as long as MLB finds a company [this year it was Monster] to pay for the sponsorship.

We can complain all we want about Liriano being screwed, but he's a rookie and plenty of players were overlooked in years they deserved to be named to the all-star team.   The player that really was screwed is Travis Hafner.  This is the second straight year that Hafner was by-passed by both the fans and the players when he's one of the top sluggers in the AL.

Mark Redman could also come up with an "injury" between now and the game, allowing Guillen to pick Liriano as his replacement.  Redman could still show up to the game in uniform, sit on the bench, represent the Royals in the introductions, and watch the game as Liriano pitches. Or given the chance, Redman could pitch two scoreless innings on Tuesday and shut us all up.

 

Solid info, newscolumns. Thanks.

After that explanation, I would have to say that Posnanski's rip of Guillen was unjustified. Given all of the restrictions, Ozzie was going to have to choose some underserving pitcher for the team, if not from KC, then from the O's or Indians. He had a right to be pissed at Poz.

 

Hey, how 'bout the world's worst All-Star?

Redman tossed eight innings, allowed five hits and two runs to win his sixth straight decision. Take that! Of course, that ERA remains an unsightly 5.27.

IMHO, I still think Mike Williams was the worst-ever All-Star selection (1-3, 6.27).

Hey, don't look now, but the Royals have a better record than Pittsburgh and are a half-game behind the Cubs. Outside of the 11- and 13-game losing streaks, they are 30-30 after beating Toronto Thursday.

OK, enough Royals fanboy nonsense from me.