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Who are the Yankees’ All-Star snubs?

First of all, happy Fourth of July! Fireworks are right around the corner at the All-Star Game. DJ LeMahieu and Gary Sanchez both made the American League All-Star team as starters. Aroldis Chapman followed them as a reliever. But while three is a nice number of representatives to have, it is not as many as they should have had. Heck, the Astros have six players on the roster. Here are the Yankees’ All-Star snubs.

Luke Voit

Sure, he wouldn’t have played in the game regardless now that he is injured, but Voit deserved to make the team before he strained his abdominal.

Dan Vogelbach made it. Granted, he was the sole Mariner that got in (choice of MLB), but outfielder Domingo Santana is also having a terrific season (better than Mookie Betts is so far, at least) – he could have been their representative. Jose Abreu also made it, voted in by the players. The White Sox have two other players going to Cleveland so it was not about that.

Here are the stats for the three:

Player

Slash HR RBI wRC+

WAR

Voit .280/.393/.509 17 50 140

1.6

Abreu

.268/.309/.508 19 60 112

0.7

Vogelbach

.242/.380/.515 20 48 142

2.1 

Yes, an argument can be made for Vogelbach based on advanced metrics such as wRC+ and WAR. However, Voit is superior to Abreu and should at least have been named a reserve. As aforementioned, this point is moot given Voit’s recent injury. 

Gleyber Torres

Torres lost out partly due to his listed position. He was listed as a shortstop for All-Star Game purposes despite being primarily a second baseman. At short, he was beaten out by the likes of the Twins’ Jorge Polanco, the Red Sox’s Xander Bogaerts (replacing Tommy La Stella, and the Indians’ Francisco Lindor.

Polanco and Bogaerts are definitely deserving, and both have an argument over Torres. But Lindor? Despite the reputation, Torres has the clear edge. Let’s take another hack at the table:

Player

Slash HR RBI wRC+ WAR
Torres .295/.363/.544 19

48

135 2.6
Lindor .291/.350/.494 12 27 115

2.2

That’s a clean sweep for Gleyber. There is no reason he shouldn’t have made the team over Lindor. But Lindor was player-elected, and his track record got him on the squad. Brandon Lowe was also added in as an injury replacement, and while Torres is listed as a SS, that shouldn’t matter and he should’ve been in there.

Adam Ottavino

This argument has the least substance of the three, but there still is a case. As of this writing, Ottavino brings a 1.91 ERA and 12.66 K/9 to the table. Those numbers are pretty good. However, Ottavino hasn’t had many clean innings – he has a 1.33 WHIP, way up from his 0.99 mark last year. Much of that is due to his career-high 16.2 percent walk rate.

Others such as Shane Greene and Ryan Pressley deserve their spots over Ottavino. Ottavino’s numbers are better in many categories over the Orioles’ John Means; however, he is their sole representative (although it could have been Trey Mancini). That essentially leaves Brad Hand of the Indians as the one who Ottavino could have potentially made the team over.

Player ERA WHIP K% BB% FIP

xFIP

Ottavino

1.91 1.33 32.9 16.2 3.93

4.36

Hand 2.17 0.99 37.4 6.8 1.92

3.06

This shows that Hand does have the upper hand (pun definitely intended). Based on xFIP, both are expected to regress, but Ottavino back towards average and Hand still towards excellent. But should there be another injury to the pitching staff, Ottavino should be one of the firsts to get the call.