Eddie Rosario Is Very Disrespected By Baseball Fans

You might think that headline is an exaggeration, but it’s not. I promise.

On Thursday, July 5, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game rosters will be announced. And on Tuesday, June 26, the final voting update before that announcement was made. In it, we saw that Minnesota Twins left fielder Eddie Rosario was 11th among American League outfielders.

In case you’re unaware of how the All-Star voting works, the top three outfield vote-getters, regardless of which outfield spot they typically play, start the All-Star Game. A handful of outfielders will make the game too, thanks to player and coach voting, but only those three the fans deem worthy get to start the game.

Because he’s sitting in 11th, Rosario is not going to start. He would need to quadruple his vote total while third place outfielder, Aaron Judge would need to receive nearly zero votes. That’s not going to happen.

He will still very likely make the team. After all, he’s the best player on the Twins this season, and every team is guaranteed at least one attendee. But that doesn’t make it better. Rosario deserves more respect than to be better than 11th place in the voting.

Through Monday, June 25, Eddie Rosario is the fourth most valuable outfielder in the American League according to FanGraphs WAR. The three ranked ahead of him are also the three outfielders that are likely to start the game: Mike Trout, Mookie Betts, and Aaron Judge.

That means the United States of America, or at least the baseball fan portion of it, thinks there are seven outfielders whose seasons, in spite of being statistically inferior to Rosario’s, are more deserving of starting the All-Star Game.

Obviously, subjectivity, as it should, factors into All-Star voting. But seven is a lot. And when stacked up against those seven outfielders, Rosario looks better in almost every statistical category.

Here’s a list of how Rosario ranks among just the eight outfielders directly behind Judge in the voting in a variety of stats:

Home Runs - first

Runs Scored - third

RBI - second (tie)

Stolen Bases - third

Batting Average - first

On Base Percentage - third

Slugging Percentage - first

BsR (which is basically runs produced by being good at baserunning) - first

Walks - eighth

Strikeouts - fifth (lower is better in this case)

Doubles - first

That’s probably more than enough stats to illustrate my point. Objectively, Eddie Rosario is an all-around better player than any of the seven players between him and Aaron Judge. Andrew Benintendi gives Rosario some competition in each category, but Rosario has the edge in almost all of them. Brett Gardner matches him in speed, but Rosario outslugs him by a hefty sum. By these numbers, Rosario, by every measure but walks, does not deserve to be 11th in the voting.

How about by things that aren’t obvious stats? The exciting things that get fans excited that would make the All-Star Game a more exciting event. The subjective things that would typically help a player overcome the objective disadvantages they have. Rosario can do those things.

He’s tied for third highest hard hit percentage and has the lowest groundball percentage. That means he is more likely to have something crazy when he hits the ball. (When he’s not hitting infield fly balls, that is, which he ranks first in by a mile.)

On defense, it’s more of the same. He’s second in out of zone plays made, which are typically the most exciting plays. He’s also saved the most runs with his throwing arm than any other outfielder on the list. Big outfield throws are typically the second most exciting plays an outfielder can make.

At this point, there isn’t much more to say. Eddie Rosario does the basic things (except walking and not popping up to the infielders) better than most everyone else that’s received more votes than him on this All-Star ballot. And he does it across the board. He also makes the cool plays that people stand up for better than most of his competition does.

This isn’t a matter of Eddie Rosario not being good enough. This isn’t a matter of Eddie Rosario not being exciting enough. It’s a matter of Eddie Rosario not being respected enough.

It’s a shame no one respects Eddie Rosario. We Twins fans get to watch him do this stuff every day. Everyone else is missing their chance to watch it for a while on July 17.