When I heard that Minnesota Twins first baseman Justin Morneau would be missing the All-Star game due to a concussion he recently sustained, I all but assumed that Kevin Youkilis (currently with the 4^th highest OPS in the league) would be rightfully appointed to take his place.  Sadly, I underestimated the unknown variable: incompetence.

What was Joe Girardi’s logic for selecting White Sox first baseman Paul Konerko over Youkilis?  Read it and weep, or laugh.  Your choice.

It’s a hard choice to make. I could have taken him or Youkilis Konerko’s hitting slightly higher, has a couple more home runs and couple more RBIs.

In other words, Joe Girardi, the manager of the most expensive sports franchise in the United States, evaluates baseball players the same way I did when I was nine-years-old.  Luckily for the Yanks, Brian Cashman and the Steinbrenners have given Girardi a quarter-billion dollars of talent to work with (and most of that money has been very wisely-spent), but imagine if this guy were managing the Royals or the Pirates?  Yikes.

For the record:

If both guys were terrible defensively, this would be more of a coin flip.  However, that’s not the case: Youkilis is among the best defensive first basemen in the game while Konerko is on the other side of the spectrum.  There really is no other way to justify this decision other than “more home runs and RBI”.

In the end, this is a good thing for the Red Sox.  Youkilis is playing hurt as it is, and he has shown a tendency to slow down in the second half of the season.  A three day rest is definitely the best thing for him at this point.  However, if this post comes off as bitter, that’s because it is.  The fan in me wanted Youkilis to get the honor he deserves, regardless of the big picture.

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