I’ve been all over the place the last couple days doing everything that I can to keep up with the Pirates game and news and roster moves (Chris Leroux? Whoa), but I made sure to check in this afternoon for the All-Star rosters. I had an idea that Andrew McCutchen was going to get snubbed when I made up my own All-Star ballot earlier last week; there’s just too many outfielders and not enough spots and Hanrahan has been awesome this year and Pirate fans can barely appreciate ‘Cutch, so why should anyone else?
I really thought that he was going to make the vote for the final roster spot, but he didn’t even get that far. I’m going to write a lot more about McCutchen for the Mag this week, but I’m not as hacked off about this as I thought I’d be. There are several facts in play here. Andrew McCutchen is awesome. The Pirates are much better than anyone expected to this point in 2011, and McCutchen is a huge part of that. The All-Star Game is based on fan voting, which is always going to be biased towards big markets. He’s one of the best players in baseball and if no one else can recognize that, it’s too bad for everyone else. We get to watch him every night; we’re not the ones that are going to miss out by not seeing him in the All-Star Game.
It sucks that the Pirates don’t get any respect, but if anything, ‘Cutch gets a couple extra days off and some more fuel for the fire. Really, there are just more important things to be worried about right now.
