Helluva story, but not an All-Star. Not even close. Desperate homerism, pathetic, embarrassing. He was an All-Star, and you guys sent him back to AAA in the spring?
There's an argument to be made that Vogelsong doesn't deserve an all-star nod. His 2.13 ERA is stellar, but it's backed by a less substantial 3.37 FIP, and he sits at just 1.4 fWAR on the season -- which, while very good, doesn't even place him in the top 50 in the majors among pitchers.
And for the record, Baseball-Reference WAR (rWAR), which is on a runs-allowed basis, likes Vogelsong a lot better -- it has him at 2.6 wins above replacement on this season, which is quite excellent.
Anyway, I have a couple problems with Olbermann's comments:
1) He doesn't provide any good supporting evidence; on Twitter, when debating about Vogelsong with Giants fans, he cited the fact that he ranks 29th in the majors in wins as a reason why he's undeserving of an all-star selection.
2) His comments are extreme. Even if Vogelsong is undeserving, it's pretty uncalled-for to say the selection is pathetic and embarrassing. There are far worse all-star selections, like Derek Jeter -- who is completely, entirely undeserving of his all-star selection, let alone his selection as the AL all-star team's starting shortstop.
And the whole W-L thing needs to die out. Wins are a terribly inefficient metric for evaluating pitchers, and if you don't believe so, I implore you to read Keith Law's article entitled "Why a win explains so little."
My favorite excerpt:
If you tell me a starting pitcher went 15-10, the only thing I can tell you is that he appeared in 25 games that year. I don't know if he pitched well, if he pitched really well but got lousy run support, or if he pitched poorly but played for an offensive powerhouse with good defenders. Pitcher wins apply a team outcome to an individual player in a sport where no one individual player can win a game.
Olbermann believes Kevin Correia is deserving of an all-star nod because of his 11 wins, which is rather absurd.
-- Giants prospect Eric Surkamp struck out 11 over 5.2 scoreless innings yesterday. I was pretty high on Surkamp entering the season, for various reasons -- his great secondary pitches, solid numbers at Single-A San Jose, and I didn't think Surkamp's hip would be a problem going forward. So I'm not surprised he's dominated pitcher-friendly Double-A this year. I expect at this rate there's an extremely good chance that he'll be in the majors at some point in 2012.
-- Over at Beyond the Box Score, Dave Gershman looked at major-league teams' popularity based on Nate Silver's method. The Giants came in at #7.
-- The Dominican Prospect League announced that the Giants signed OF Carlos Valdez for $325K. Don't know much about him, but he apparently projects as a five-tool player, with above-average speed, power, and arm. The DPL has posted video on Youtube of him.
-- The Giants are still looking at catchers, but I wouldn't be surprised if they don't make a move. I actually think improving the middle infield is more urgent at this point, as the Giants could really use upgrades over Bill Hall, Emmanuel Burriss, and Miguel Tejada.
-- MLB Daily Dish looked at the five best free agent bargains of the offseason, yet another reminder of how Ryan Vogelsong has been a great (and very useful) surprise.
