Generally, I’m against doling out All-Star honors as lifetime achievement awards.  People tend to cite the number of ASG appearances a player has compiled as a testament to his greatness, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.

“Cal Ripken appeared in 19 All-Star Games!”  Right, but he only should have appeared in 12.
“Ozzie Smith appeared in 15 All-Star games!”  Fine, but he should have played in only 7.   Ect.

Anyway, the grumblings around these parts is that Tim Wakefield should be selected to the 2009 American League All-Star team.  Should he?  Let’s see.  Currently, Tim Wakefield has done this (I’ll reference triple crown stats here, since they are the likely determinants):

As far as I can tell, there are 6 starters who are clearly ahead of Wakefield in the pecking order, considering the teams they play for (remember, each team needs 1 representative) and their performance to date.

Now, we’ll assume 7 starters are taken.  6 were picked last year, but there have been fewer dominant performances by closers in the American League this season, so we’ll make the assumption that 1 more starting pitcher is taken this year.

Here are Wakefield’s competitors for that final “rotation” spot.

If you’re rooting for Wakefield to appear in the All-Star game, the above four guys are the pitchers who will need to fail (to some degree) over their next 3 starts.

Now, here is where Wakefield’s chances get hurt even more.  The Chicago White Sox (Mark Buehrle’s team) are a bad baseball team.  It is very likely that only 1 White Sox player will be sent to St. Louis this July, and there is a very good chance that this player will be Mark Buehrle.  If that’s the case, and the first six pitchers I listed above do not get hurt or falter precipitously, Wakefield’s chances are close to zero.  There simply won’t be room for him on the roster.

The odds are against him.

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