When Joe Torre chooses his players for the American League All-Star roster, he will be hampered by having the first 3 positions around the infield diamond clogged with unworthy selections chosen by the fan ballot. With the addition of 2 more spots added to make for a 32 roster, this should alleviate some of the problems the Yankee or former Yankee bias has created on the All-Star ballots. Here is my breakdown.

Catcher- Ivan Rodriguez leads the balloting and has been the top backstop in the Majors. Torre will have to decide if he wants to carry 3 catchers or not, with Jorge Posada and Victor Martinez being the other choices. I would go with 3 catchers and reward Martinez’s fabulous season, as his OPS might be 26 points lower than Posada (.922 to .896) and Jorge is much better behind the plate, but Victor’s 52 RBI’s to 32 for Posada, makes this a pretty close race.

1st Base- Jason Giambi is a lock to win the fan vote, so he takes one deserving choice from the AL team. A lock should be Frank Thomas with his .453 OBP and .1053 OPS, but after that it gets tougher. David Ortiz (.937 OPS), Travis Hafner (.931), Paul Konerko (.924) and Scott Hatteberg (.903) are all very close, but Ortiz should be the ultimate winner, with his 69 RBI’s. By the way, Ken Harvey makes the squad, above all these other more deserving candidates, as Beltran being traded, leaves him with the only decent major league stats on the Royals roster.

2nd Base- Alfonso Soriano continues to live off his Yankee high profile past, but Ronnie Belliard should be the starter. With more top-notch players at shortstop, I would have Micheal Young play his old position, replacing Soriano after his first at bat.

Shortstop- Derek Jeter is the final poor choice by the fans on the AL side, where even with ARod moving over to 3rd and Nomar hurt most of the first half, there are at least 4 more deserving candidates. With Young moved over to second, the 3 remaining choices would be Jose Guillen (.914), Jose Valentin (.904), and Miguel Tejada (.847). I would take the top 2 OBP candidates, but I expect that Torre will select Tejada over Valentin.

3rd Base- Alex Rodriguez is the AL’s top 3rd baseman, shortstop, and probably would be the best at about 3 or 4 other positions. Hank Blalock is one of the top 5 players in the league and should demand ARod be put back to his rightful spot of shortstop, so this great young Ranger is not kept from ever starting in the All-Star Game.

Outfielders- If by luck or not, the fans’ vote is hard to argue with, as vote leaders Vlad Guerrero, Manny Ramirez, and Gary Sheffield are excellent choices. Only Melvin Mora and Hideki Matsui are on the same level at this point. Since the Blue Jays have to have one all-star, add Vernon Wells.

I will visit the AL Pitchers in the next couple of days; so calm down A’s, Twins, Devil Rays, and Mariners fans. I chose 21 position players, as 11 pitchers is plenty, as even in an extra inning game, it’s going to be hard for Torre to use more than 8 hurlers.
Please note that these selections only represent the author and do not particularly reflect the opinions of Will, Ken, and I’m especially guessing, TFD.