Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — Good news and bad news, Dodgers fans. First the good news: three of your Los Angeles Dodgers will be going to the All-Star game in Denver on July 14. Chris Taylor, Max Muncy, and Mookie Betts will all be reserve players for the NL squad this year. Hooray for them! The bad news? Some very deserving Dodgers got left off the roster completely. Ugh.
Of course, every team has a similar gripe. Everybody thinks their guy is more deserving than the guy who ended up getting selected, but more on that later. First, let us celebrate those who DID make it.
Mookie Betts
This one is a bit of a surprise for me. Betts did do well in the fan voting, and he is a perennial selection for the team, but Dodger fans know this has not been a typical Mookie Betts year. His batting average of .247 is fifty points below his career average, and his OPS of .810 is 79 points below his career mark. Of course, Mookie’s off year is better than most players’ career year, but still the pick is a bit of a head scratcher, especially when guys like Ramiel Tapia and Bryce Harper are having arguably better years. Still, I suppose in a year where there is no other African American player on the National League roster, I guess the pick makes sense if the goal is to broaden the appeal of the game. Hopefully, Mookie will have a great second half to justify the pick.
Chris Taylor
This one, on the other hand, is very well deserved. Taylor has been the Dodgers most consistent player since Opening Day. His OPS of .828 doesn’t even begin to tell the story of what he’s meant to the Dodgers this year. Every Dodger fan could easily name a half a dozen clutch Chris Taylor moments off the top of his head, and that is to say nothing of his defensive versatility. Sometimes, the All-Star game gets one right. And this is definitely one where we have to tip our hat to the selection committee.
Max Muncy
Let’s be honest. Max should be starting the game at first base if there were any justice in the world, so if he didn’t make the team at all, it would have been an outrage. The left-handed slugger has carried the team over long stretches this year when Seager, Bellinger, and Betts were nowhere to be found. And in a bit of good news for Munce, it looks like he may make the starting lineup after all, as Dave Roberts has indicated that he plans to make Muncy his DH for the game, so there is some justice in the world, even if it is delayed.
Snubs aplenty
And this is the point in the post where you say, “What?!” And in fact I did, too when I first saw the list. For a team that is so good on the mound, to have not a single pitcher selected for the All-Star game is downright insulting. I get it, the Dodgers have been making deep runs for the better part of a decade and everybody is tired of us, but seriously? No Buehler? No Kershaw? No Jansen? No Treinen? Nothing? You’ve got to be kidding me.
But alas, the joke is on Dodgers’ fans. One of the best pitching staffs in baseball will have a total of zero representatives in Denver next week. Ugh! Seriously messed up.
Don’t even get me started on Justin Turner!
