Baseball will be without an All-Star Game in 2020 but could be the team’s All-Stars?
It was announced on Friday that the 2020 All-Star Game would not be happening in Los Angeles as planned, and they’ll instead host the 2022 All-Star Game instead. With no game, there will be some questions that revolve around if there’ll be All-Star awards. Will the league still name All-Star players without a game to play in?
Honestly, nothing that’s been put out there says one thing about any ceremonial All-Star announcements. After all, a lot of contracts have All-Star incentives written in. Do players not get the opportunity at those incentives? Noticeably most all-star games across sports always have players that opt-out, and they’re still rewarded. Why should this year be any different? It wouldn’t be too crazy to do a ceremonial selection; after all, this will only be a 60 game season. So while a ceremonial selection is unknown currently, it’s still fun to think about who could’ve gone.
If there aren’t any formal selections, then these three Cleveland Indians will of been robbed of an award. Just for a little fun, we’ll also be selecting an alternate selection as someone who maybe could have made an All-Star team but maybe won’t for some reason.
Francisco Lindor
This one is the most obvious. Until he leaves, via free agency or a trade, Lindor will be a near-lock to make an All-Star team every year he’s in the league. He’s a career .288 hitter and would’ve been on his way to a fifth straight All-Star game. He’s an 80 RBI, 30 HR average hitter over the last four years, and there’s no doubt he’ll be able to reduplicate that type of production. In this shortened season, 30 RBI’s and 11+ HR’s seem very doable.
Lindor missing out on this All-Star game maybe hurts the most of all on this list, mostly because of how likely it is that he’ll be wearing a different club’s hat next year. If this is his last year with the Tribe, at least his last All-Star game will have been played as an Indian in the home of the Indians. That’s pretty poetic.
Alternate: Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana had a huge season last year. Career highs in home runs, RBI’s, average, OPS and so many other key statistics. Rightfully, he was awarded a slot in the All-Star Game for his efforts. Yet, at 34, the odds that Santana keeps that pace or even improves upon it seem unlikely. He’s by no means a lock to make a second All-Star game and it’s more likely he drops off in 2020 some.
Shane Beiber
How do you follow up a season with your first All-Star selection, next to 259 strikeouts, 15 wins, and three complete games? Well, Beiber was poised for a run at the Cy Young this year, which seems unlikely due to the fact he’ll only pitch about eight times this season. There’s no real honor in winning an award that is partially based off of endurance if you’re only pitching a slightly longer playoff run for a regular season.
He doubled the number of strikeouts he threw from his rookie to sophomore years, and the hope was that Beiber would continue to ascend the hill as one of the league’s best players and pitchers. Hopefully able to be the one who replaces Corey Kluber as the team’s new ace. While he can still show that type of control and ability in a shortened season, without a Cy Young and All-Star award to give him for his sheer brutality as a pitcher, it almost feels a bit hollow.
Alternate: Jordan Luplow
Now, this may seem like an interesting pick, but Jordan Luplow played really well in relatively minimal at-bats. If Luplow played an entire season for the Indians last year, (500 at-bats), he would’ve had near-identical numbers to Francisco Lindor. We’re talking over 30 home runs, over 85-odd RBI’s; all at a clip of .275. If he could’ve built off of last year’s numbers, Luplow could’ve had a huge 2020 to remember. Instead, like everyone else, he’ll only have 60 games to showcase what he can do this season.
Franmil Reyes
Franmil Reyes had 37 home runs last year. Pretty dang impressive. He also finished with a respectable .249 average and a decent 81 RBI’s. Granted, someone with his power should be a lot higher in runs batted in and batting average stats. The number of guys in the majors who can crank out 35+ home runs while not hitting 90 RBI’s or having an above .250 average isn’t deep.
Reyes was traded to Cleveland from San Diego around mid-season and that couldn’t have been an easy thing psychology or even physically to deal with. Reyes was someone that a lot of fans were hoping to see across 162 games in 2020. The hope was that he’d take a huge step in efficiency alongside his production. He still might but 60 games isn’t an accurate sample size.
Alternate: Bradley Zimmer
Yeah, even I don’t entirely think this one will ever be possible but I’m still holding out hope for Bradley Zimmer. He’s barely played since his rookie year in 2017. He was sort of effective that year but since then injuries have just piled up on the poor young slugger. He only played 24 games last year across all of the teams, and when he was playing he wasn’t very effective. Should Zimmer of been healthy and gotten 162 odd games to play this year, the hope was that he’d finally show the organization why he was such a vaunted prospect at one point. Now it feels like he’ll never truly find that stroke needed to survive in the majors. Oh, what could’ve been.