Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site houem.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!houxz!houxm!houem!jhr2 From: jhr2@houem.UUCP (J.ROSENBLUTH) Newsgroups: net.sport.baseball Subject: All-Star Selection Message-ID: <263@houem.UUCP> Date: Wed, 20-Jun-84 13:45:40 EDT Article-I.D.: houem.263 Posted: Wed Jun 20 13:45:40 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jun-84 07:36:58 EDT Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 32 I believe that an all-star should be the best player at his position. That is, the player who most would positively effect the team in their chances to win. With that criterion in mind, I do not think that the best player is necessarily the one having the best first half of this year. As an example, one year ago Bruce Benedict had a slightly better first half than Gary Carter. Now, who is the better player? That was easy, wasn't it? Putting it another way, would you trade Carter to obtain Benedict? Another example was Toby Harrah versus George Brett a couple of years ago. To decide who the better player is, it makes sense to look at performance over the last few years, weighting recent performance more heavily, but not this year's performance with weight one and all other years zero. So, before naming Ramirez or Washington or Kingman or Sandberg or Mattingly or whoever, it might be better to think of the last few years. Finally, the above comments are based on the criterion in the first paragraph. The comments do not apply to other criteria. Josh Rosenbluth (...houxm!houem!jhr2)