Major League Baseball's annual All-Star Game is coming up, and I would like to ask everyone (baseball fan or not) to do me one small favor in the upcoming week and a half. Whoever else you vote for (or even if you don't vote for anybody else), please vote for Martin Prado as the National League's All-Star second baseman.
He is in second place behind Chase Utley - and I mean way behind. However, he is a very good player having an excellent season, and deserves a lot more love than he's getting - even if you really like Chase Utley.
So please, contribute your All-Star vote(s) to Martin Prado, and you will have my undying gratitude. Here's how to vote if you're not familiar:
1) Go to http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp.
2) Click on the link at the very top of the page that says "All-Star Game 2010: Vote".
3) Enter the appropriate information in the ballot that pops up (and uncheck the box that says, "I would like to receive commercial e-mails from my favorite clubs (below) and MLB.com." if you don't want to get e-mails).
4) Click on "Vote Now".
5) You will find Martin Prado in the NL (National League) Ballot, under Second Basemen.
6) When you are finished, click on "Submit Ballot". You will get one and only one thank-you e-mail from MLB.com for each voting session.
7) You can vote up to 25 times. I would encourage voting the maximum number of times (it's quite easy), but if you only have the time to vote once, that's perfectly fine.
8) Voting ends on July 1st at 11:59 pm.
I'll keep you posted as to Martin's progress (you can also track it here: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/allstar/voting), as well as discussing some related philosophical issues in my upcoming blog post titled "What Is An All-Star?".
Thanks so much!
What makes Martin Prado such a great 2nd baseman?
ReplyDeleteThat's a great question!
ReplyDeleteLet me give you a two-part answer as to why I put this post up:
1) Martin Prado is having a great season.
He is batting .339, which leads the National League and is 3rd overall in the Major Leagues - he also leads the Majors in hits with 101.
What this means in practical terms is that he is an excellent lead-off man because he reliably gets on base, affording the hitters behind him a chance to move him over and drive him in. Accordingly, he is tied for 4th in the Majors in runs scored, and tied for 1st in the National League.
Additionally, he is tied for 4th in the Majors (and for 2nd in the National League) in fielding percentage for second basemen, having committed only 2 errors all season.
This means that he is not only a reliable spark for the offense, but that he is also a reliable fielder. He has two jobs, and he is doing both of them excellently.
2) I believe that Martin Prado is getting short shrift in the All-Star voting.
For that matter, one could argue that other second basemen like the Marlins' Dan Uggla and the Reds' Brandon Phillips (among others), who are also having very good seasons, are being similarly short-changed.
The leading vote-getter for National League second basemen, Chase Utley, is indeed an excellent player, but he is not, in my opinion, having that much better a season than Prado, Uggla or Phillips that he deserves so many more votes than they are getting. I can give you some more numbers to back up that claim if you'd like, but I'll refrain in this comment for the sake of brevity.
For that reason, I think it's warranted to start a mini-campaign to (very partially) correct the large imbalance that I believe exists in this voting category.
As a life-long fan of the Atlanta Braves, and looking at the numbers (see above and ESPN.com if you'd like more stats), I personally support a campaign for Martin Prado - and I will still be eternally grateful if you vote for him.
However, if any of you are supporters of the Marlins, Reds or another team, and you feel that your second baseman is getting a raw deal in all of this, then I encourage you to get online and vote for him, if you haven't already.
I apologize that my original post did not make that clear, that it's not just about Martin Prado - it's about trying to send a message that there are second basemen in the National League just as good as Mr. Utley, and that the magnitude of his lead is entirely unwarranted.
This, of course, raises the question of how people evaluate what an All-Star is, a topic that I will be addressing shortly in a separate post.
Thanks again for the question!
braves suck
ReplyDeleteWhoa there bud. Whoa.
ReplyDeleteOK - you convinced me. Just cast my vote.
ReplyDeleteWill do sir!
ReplyDelete