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2012 All-Star game

NL All-Star Report: Jed Lowrie’s Career Rejuvenation In Houston

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The career of Houston Astros’ shortstop Jed Lowrie looked to be on the downward trend when the 28-year-old was traded from Boston to Houston over the offseason. After a decent debut with the Red Sox back in 2008 that saw him post a .339 on-base percentage, play good defense, drive in the run that won the Division Series over the Los Angeles Angels and otherwise liberate us Sox fans from ever seeing Julio Lugo on the field again, Lowrie looked to have a bright future. Then health problems, including mononucleosis, got in the way and he only had 68 at-bats a year later. In 2010 he was productive when he played—a .381/.526 stat line—but health still only allowed him 171 at-bats. With 309 ABs a year ago, his numbers tailed off sharply. The Red Sox dealt him for reliever Mark Melancon, who was shipped to the minors soon after this season started. Lowrie, meanwhile, has taken off.

Lowrie is batting a respectable .269, but solid plate discipline has gotten him the walks that lift the OBP to .354, and the power he flashed in ’10 is back in full force, with 13 home runs keying a .498 slugging percentage. If we had to vote today for the National League All-Star team—and for the purposes of TheSportsNotebook’s Road To Kansas City tour of each position leading up to the July 10 All-Star game in KC we do need to pick today—then Lowrie deserves the nod at shortstop. Houston might have a lot of issues to work on, but middle infield isn’t one of them, as Lowrie joins second baseman Jose Altuve as a deserving vote to start the All-Star game.

I don’t know if you still want to consider Lowrie young at 28, but if you do, he’s part of a very interesting group of young shortstops in the National League. Over the long-term the best of the group is Starlin Castro. He swings a good bat, hitting .302 and plays a premier defensive game. He only trails Lowrie because the latter has much better walk totals, thereby eclipsing the batting average edge. That’s something Castro has to work on over time. And Lowrie is also abnormally hot with his power stroke. Castro’s slugging is currently .449 and I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t pass his Houston counterpart here by the end of the season.

Cincinnati and Los Angeles each have rookies at the spot, with Zack Cozart and Dee Gordon respectively. Both are playing well defensively. Gordon has a lot of work to do at the plate if he’s going to fulfill his promise. Cozart’s numbers aren’t dazzling—a .307/.426 line—but he’s had hot runs have been very good and if the consistency levels out with experience, then the Reds have a gem on their hands in the year they honor one of their all-time greats at shortstop, as Barry Larkin goes into the Hall of Fame.

Continuing the young shortstop theme, San Francisco’s given the job to Brandon Crawford, who’s giving them great work with the glove, but has the same issues as Gordon with the bat. Ian Desmond in Washington has showing surprising power, popping 11 home runs and slugging .452. The issue here is that his defense is not very good and if the home runs stop, there’s nothing else he does consistently to help the Nats win. And one of the more intriguing players is San Diego’s Everth Cabrera. He got the job after a knee injury to Jason Bartlett, and though he’s only got 107 at-bats so far, Cabrera is playing the kind of baseball that could leave Bartlett Wally Pipped (the verb in honor of the former Yankee first baseman whose missed game put Lou Gehrig in the lineup for 2,130 straight games). Cabrera’s .342/.411 stat line is certainly respectable, especially given he hits in Petco Park. And his defense is superlative. Keep an eye on what the Padres do once Bartlett comes back towards the end of next month.

Beyond the young kids there’s the old guard of Troy Tulowitzki (Colorado), Jose Reyes (Miami), Jimmy Rollins (Philadelphia) and Rafael Furcal (St. Louis). I’ve always felt Rollins and Furcal were overrated to begin with and neither one is doing much. Although if I had to pick, it would be Furcal, who plays better defense and at least hits for average, at .285, even if his overall OBP is usually less than stellar. Reyes hasn’t really gotten into consistent rhythm at Miami, although he’s shown flashes and with a .349 OBP is doing well enough that he could play himself into consideration for the nod at this position when TheSportsNotebook revisits the topic in September. Tulowitzki was most definitely having an All-Star season, at .360/.486 and some great defense, but he’s going in for surgery on his groin and is out to the end of July, In a lost season for rebuilding Colorado I find it hard to believe they’d rush their meal ticket back too quickly.

Arizona’s Willie Bloomquist and Pittsburgh’s Clint Barmes are each outright liabilities, although the Diamondbacks have hope of getting Stephen Drew back at the end of July from the ankle surgery he had at this time a year ago. Atlanta, New York and Milwaukee have all been beset by injuries and have no stability at shortstop.

AL All-Star Report: 2B Jason Kipnis Carries Cleveland Offense

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The Cleveland Indians are hanging in the AL Central race, only 1.5 games back of Chicago coming into Monday’s games. And while a big part of that is the division they play in—at 33-32, the Tribe are only a half-game better than the Boston Red Sox or Miami Marlins, both of whom are fighting for their lives against tougher competition—another big part of it is the play of second baseman Jason Kipnis. The 25-year-old in his first major league season is having a year that would measure up against any caliber of competition and he leads up our discussion of American League second baseman on The Road To Kansas City and the July 10 All-Star game.

Kipnis started to make a splash last year when he came up and had an on-base percentage/slugging percentage line of .333/.507, including seven home runs, in just 136 at-bats. This year the graduate of Arizona State’s storied baseball program had the job from the outset and there’s been no letup. The stat line is at .339/.455 and he’s popped 11 home runs. What I like most about Kipnis is the run production. He’s got 41 RBIs and 46 runs scored, the highest combined total among AL second baseman. And this is not a case of someone just stumbling into a ton of opportunities. The Cleveland offense ranks ninth in the American League, so Kipnis is clearly making the most of the chances he gets to help the team put runs on the board. He’s also an asset on the defensive side of the line of scrimmage, so to speak, and deserves a trip to KC in July.

But while Kipnis deserves a trip, someone else deserves to start, and that someone will have no problem generating the votes. New York’s Robinson Cano may have gotten off to a slow start, but he’s blazing right now, as his team’s fortunes are tracking his own. Cano’s .367 on-base percentage and .534 slugging percentage both lead his second base contemporaries in the AL. He’s a solid defender. There is really no credible reason to pick against him other than an anti-Yankee bias. And believe me, this site holds that bias dear to its heart, so even though Cano’s on my Fantasy team I’d go against him if there was a logical reason to do so. But there isn’t. He’s playing the best baseball of any American League second baseman just based on this year and if you factor in his track record compared to Kipnis’ I think a fair-minded fan has to choose the Yankee second baseman (But I’m still choosing someone else when I go vote on MLB.com later this month).

Cano and Kipnis are the bright spots in a position that has almost as many disappointments as the first base spot does in the American League. After a fast start, Texas’ Ian Kinsler has cooled off and while his .338/.448 slugging line isn’t bad, it’s also not particularly noteworthy and when you consider the quality of the lineup he hits in and the friendliness of the ballpark for a hitter, it looks even worse. And we haven’t even talked about Kinsler’s terrible defensive range at a position where such can’t be overlooked. But say this for the Ranger second baseman—he’s swinging a better bat than Dustin Pedroia in Boston. If you watched last night’s Red Sox-Cubs game on ESPN (which would have required audibiling down from the U.S. Open or the NBA Finals to watch two last-place baseball teams), you heard  Terry Francona say that Pedroia could put a team on those skinny little shoulders of his. The fact I heard Francona say this gives me away as one of the people who really did audible down, and having watched enough Red Sox games I know Francona is right. But this year hasn’t had many of those times. Not with a .326/.400 stat line. At least Pedroia is an excellent defender.

Two other disappointments are Kelly Johnson in Toronto and Howie Kendrick in Los Angeles. Johnson, like Kinsler, got off to a hot start, but has tailed off to a .344/.400 line and like Kinsler, he’s a defensive liability. Kendrick has never gotten started and his up-and-down career is in a down cycle right now.

Still four more second baseman have to qualify as at least mild disappointments. After a terrific rookie year, Oakland’s Jemile Weeks is hitting .222 with no power. Seattle’s Dustin Ackley gives some good glovework, but is hitting .247 with no power. Chicago’s Gordon Beckham is batting .236 with no power. And Minnesota’s Alexi Casilla? You guessed it. Batting .247 and nary a home run to be found. Furthermore, Ackley is the only one who helps his team defensively.

Then there’s four more teams who have had enough instability at the spot that we can’t even put a name in the All-Star discussion. Well, I suppose we could put Baltimore’s Robert Andino in the group. But after a poor performance at the plate, he’s now lost the job to veteran Brian Roberts who just got back from the disabled list. The return of Roberts, who was once every bit the equal of Cano—if not superior—is one of the intriguing stories going forward in Baltimore. Tampa Bay’s Ben Zobrist is another such story. He’s had to play a majority of his games in the outfield thus far due to injuries, but now he’s back at second and starting to hit for the first time this year. The Orioles and Rays could be getting as good a second base work as anyone in the game—and if Pedroia and Johnson pick it up, the entire AL East could be strong at this position. The same can’t be said for the AL Central, where Kansas City and Detroit have instability due to incompetence and no reason to think anything will improve, at least internally.

AL All-Star Report: Pierzynski Power Play Helps White Sox

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The Chicago White Sox are holding their lead in the American League Central, with a ½ game lead over the Cleveland Indians coming into Tuesday’s games and the big reason is their offense, which is fourth in the American League in runs scored. And while first baseman Paul Konerko is the straw that stirs the drink on the South Side, don’t overlook the big contribution made by catcher A.J. Pierzynski. The 35-year-old veteran is an experiencing an offensive outbreak like we haven’t seen in his career and he leads up TheSportsNotebook’s discussion of American League catchers.

Pierzynski’s on-base percentage of .335 isn’t dazzling, but it’s manageable, especially at a position where offensive output is far from the norm. Where he’s really kicked in is with his power. The 10 home runs have him on a pace to hit 20 in a season for the first time in his career, and his .508 slugging percentage is easily the best of his career—he’s only cleared .450 once and that was in 2003 when he was with the Minnesota Twins. In fact the OBP figure is also the best Pierzynski has produced since ’03. So even though this is someone who was a key part of Chicago’s 2005 World Series champion, the fans of the South Side—a group that includes President Obama—have never seen him hit like this.

Does that make him worthy of the All-Star selection if we voted right now based on current year production only? There are three other candidates you can make it an argument for. Well, really only two. I’m including Baltimore’s Matt Wieters in the discussion, because he’s close enough that a hot streak could move him up to the top if we had this same conversation in a couple weeks and he certainly could lead the field when TheSportsNotebook revisits the entire All-Star discussion at the end of September, but a recent hitting slump have his OBP/Slugging numbers at .336/.450. He draws his walks, which helped sustain him offensively, even as his batting average slipped to .255 and he’s popped nine home runs. Nonetheless, based on today’s production, Wieters would be fourth, behind not only Pierzynski, but Joe Mauer in Minnesota and Mike Napoli in Texas.

Mauer has enjoyed a comeback season in the Twin Cities and we’re back to seeing him churn out times on base, as he’s hitting .302 with a plate discipline that tacks on 104 points when it’s time to do OBP. The power is fine for a catcher, but at .422, not what either his White Sox or Ranger counterpart are producing. Napoli has hit 11 home runs to key a .483 slugging percentage, and his OBP is at .356. My issue with picking Napoli for the All-Star spot is that he has a lot more support in his lineup than either Mauer or Pierzynski, so my inclination is to narrow it to the two AL Central catchers. And from there I give a slight nod to the veteran Pierzynski, because I think his home runs have been so important in giving help to Paul Konerko and Adam Dunn and carrying a lineup that lacks depth, while still needing to score a lot of runs. I have my doubts that it can sustain into the second half, but the White Sox catcher currently has TheSportsNotebook’s nod for top AL catcher.

If we’re looking for anyone to break into the upper crust by the time September arrives and we decide who had the best overall year, let’s start with Detroit’s Alex Avila, whose .338/.429 line is a little disappointing right now, but he was the AL’s best at this spot in 2011 and isn’t far from getting back into the discussion. And if Boston’s Jarrod Saltalamacchia had better patience at the plate, he could get in the conversation. Saltalamacchia has hit 11 home runs and his slugging percentage outpaces Pierzynski, and he’s batting .255, but unlike the other catchers he’s not using walks to tack a 100 or so points on in OBP. As a Red Sox fan I hope he gets in the mix. As a writer I really hope it’s not a Chicago-Boston battle at catcher, because I dread an article where I’m repeatedly typing and spell-checking Saltalamacchia and Pierzynski throughout.

In the category of “good batting eye but please get a hit” are Russell Martin in New York and Carlos Santana for Cleveland, who have OBPs around .340, while batting in the low .200s. As much as I like walks, and give both players credit for their patience, I’m not so into the whole OBP thing that I fail to see that it is better to get a hit then take a walk.

There are three disappointments led up by Toronto’s J.P. Arencibia, whose second season was supposed to be breakout time. Instead it’s a .269/.413 disaster as his nine home runs mark his nine productive at-bats for the year. Miguel Olivo in Seattle is also not hitting, and neither is Kurt Suzuki in Oakland, although the latter has been subpar for so many years that the only disappointment is either me for even vaguely thinking things might change, or Billy Beane for never bothering to find anyone else.

The LA Angels and Kansas City are splitting time with players due to injuries and none have been particularly successful. The same goes for Tampa Bay, where 37-year-old starter Jose Molina is healthy now, but has only 97 at-bats for the year and is a liability. CBS Sportsline’s player review said he’s not as good a hitter as his brother. That’s true. It’s also such an understatement that it’s akin to saying my drive to the basket is not as good as LeBron James and I’m not as cool as Brad Pitt was in Oceans 11.