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A season ago, the St. Louis Cardinals had six all-star selections. How many guys will be participants in this year’s mid-summer classic?
When your club is 23 games above the .500 mark at the season’s “midway point” as the St. Louis Cardinals were in 2015, you are most certainly going to see plenty of consideration for individual awards.
Only the Kansas City Royals (7) had more all-star game participants than the Cardinals (6) a season ago, and we all remember that squirrelly fan vote thing they had going on last summer.
Anywho, the Cardinals got terrific first halves from the likes of Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez in 2015, making each first-time all-stars. Barring some insanely dominant June, there probably won’t be a single Cardinal starting pitcher in the all-star game in 2016.
Jhonny Peralta was voted an all-star in 2015. As pumped as I am for him to be activated off the DL on Tuesday, I don’t think that gives him ample time to put up numbers.
Trevor Rosenthal made his first all-star game in 2015, and he’s been pretty solid in his chances in 2016 (10 for 11 on saves). But, he still sits a distant 12th place in saves in the National League at the start of play Monday.
Who are the guys with a chance (at least from this writer’s perspective) then? Here’s my list, in no particular order of who might make it to Petco in mid-July.
Next: Infielders
Infielders
Yadier Molina
easy call, here. Yadi leads the vote for National League catchers, and he is a virtual lock to make his eighth straight all star game.
Yadi was nearly 80,000 votes ahead of second place man Buster Posey following the first balloting update on June 1. Even if Posey managed to overtake the voting lead, there’s no way Yadi isn’t in as a reserve.
Matt Carpenter
He’s a ways down on the voting list for NL third basemen, and at a stacked position, Carpenter is going to have a really tough time making up any ground.
Still, though, at .281/.388/.543, he’s not that far off from having all-star worthy numbers. Carp could certainly slide in as a bench guy with a big month of June.
Aledmys Diaz
Even after cooling off a bit from his torrid start to his MLB career, Aledmys Diaz still leads all National League shortstops in batting average and OPS. He trails Trevor Story in slugging by a few decimal points, despite notching seven fewer home runs.
Now that Mo and Matheny have expressed confidence in the 25-year-old rookie by announcing their plans to keep Diaz at short full-time upon Jhonny Peralta’s return, I think we could see Diaz really take off.
The sky is the limit for Aledmys Diaz. He hasn’t gotten much all star consideration after the first ballot process, but if he keeps going like he has, he’ll start to get plenty of attention.
Matt Adams
I’m sure there are still plenty of Cardinals’ faithful that still think that Matt Adams is no good at first base, that we should ship him off elsewhere and give the job over the Brandon Moss.
All I can say is that numbers don’t lie. He’s slashing .325/.382/.569 with seven home runs and 27 RBI through 136 plate appearances. He’s hitting .364 against lefties, his biggest knock ahead of 2016.
His problem, though, is that he doesn’t have enough at-bats to be considered amongst the league leaders for production by National League first basemen.
I don’t know if the slash numbers would be that high through, say, 200 PA’s…but there’s no denying that Adams has been very good through the first third of this 2016 season.
Next: Outfielders
Outfielders
Stephen Piscotty
Another guy that isn’t getting a ton of love on the balloting yet. Piscotty is 14th amongst NL outfielders despite his .311/.387/.488 slash line with seven home runs and 33 RBI to boot.
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Really, I just don’t think that many people really know how good Piscotty is quite yet. He is far from a household name at this point in his career, and that hurts him in all star considerations.
But, again, a monster June could certainly change that.
Matt Holliday
One of the consistent All-Stars for the Cardinals over the years has been Matt Holliday. Unfortunately, it would take a monster month for Holliday to make the National League All-Star roster.
Holliday is having a solid season and has definitely been on the up and up lately, but he is too far behind the eight ball to be considered for this game.
Next: Has Jamaal Charles Lost a Step?
Wrap
Ultimately, this team doesn’t have any dominant stars beyond Yadier Molina. So, it is going to be a stretch for the team to get many starters on the National League roster. As there is an actual game played, this is probably for the better.