Seeing Pete's All-Star ballot on RaptorMagic inspires me to post my own. This means I'll probably actually vote this year, something I've never done before.

General principles: Like Pete, I like hitting, and I rank primarily by batting average. True to the supposed Moneyball philosophy of the Oakland A's (which in recent years has not matched the team's actual behavior), I like a hitter who will take a lot of pitches and get a lot of walks, so I'll also look at on-base percentage (OBP) in addition to just batting average.

I hate that so many votes go to players who are more famous even if they're not playing as well, so in a marginal case, I'll prefer the lesser-known candidate. Yes, I do realize that a preference for better-known players is inherent in the name "All-Star Game", but I'd still rather push the guys who ought to be stars and aren't over the reverse.

I also hate that Yankees are so grossly overrated in the polling that any Yankee starter gets a bunch of votes, no matter how mediocre he may be. Looking at the polling numbers, one can only conclude that there are thousands of Yankees fans out there who simply vote their entire team as a straight ticket. As a futile gesture of protest, I refuse to vote for any Yankee, even if he's the best. There's a certain irony there, since the Yankees are the one team that truly does employ the strategy of taking a lot of walks, a concept which the popular mind associates with Oakland.

(All stats are as of Saturday morning, which is when I wrote most of this.)

American League:

1B: Scott Hatteberg (Oakland). This is my one parochial pick. Hatteberg is my favorite non-pitcher among the A's. He's also arguably their best hitter, ahead of the more famous Chavez and Dye. Pete picked Chicago's Frank Thomas, who is way ahead in OBP thanks to a ton of walks and has a bunch of HRs, too. Among the AL 1Bs who actually play 1B, as opposed to DH (in spite of being an AL partisan, I have no love for the DH), Hatteberg has the best OBP. I also like that he has the lowest strike-out ratio in the entire league at any position.

Another contender who deserves consideration is Kansas City's Ken Harvey, whose batting average is by far the best, but whose OBP is a bit under Hatteberg's. Not deserving of consideration are Jason Giambi, Carlos Delgado, and Rafael Palmeiro, who are getting a lot of votes based on past fame, not present performance.

2B: Mark Bellhorn (Boston). Belliard, Soriano, Uribe and Bellhorn are roughly equal as hitters. Belliard is probably the best, in spite of his lack of power, but I like Bellhorn anyway. His average is not as good, but I love all his walks (second in the league, behind only Frank Thomas). He used to be an Athletic, 1997-2001, back when the team really did follow the OBP strategy it's so famous for.

SS: Michael Young (Texas). At this position, I agree with Pete on every point, though I came very close to picking Detroit's Carlos Guillen instead. It's disgusting that Jeter and Garciaparra are leading the polls here. Pete listed five AL shortstops having a better year (Young, Guillen, Valentin, Tejada, Eckstein), and might easily have added three more (Lugo, Crosby, Vizquel).

3B: Melvin Mora (Baltimore). Pete says Alex Rodriguez is having a better season. I think that's arguable. A-Rod has more home runs and more stolen bases, but Mora's average is a lot higher. For me, it's a moot point; A-Rod is a Yankee now, so I can't vote for him..

C: Victor Martinez (Cleveland). This is an underdog vote. Ivan (Pudge) Rodriguez and Jorge Posada are better hitters, but they're plenty famous already. Posada would probably be my choice if he weren't a Yankee. I don't much care for Pudge, partly because I believe he's negligent in handling pitchers, which I consider an important but underrated skill for a catcher. (Former Oakland catcher Ramon Hernandez is particularly good at this.) Second-best hitters among AL catchers are Martinez and Boston's Jason Varitek, so I pick the new kid.

OF: Vladimir Guerrero (Anaheim), Manny Ramirez (Boston), Matt Lawton (Cleveland). Again, I agree with Pete. The first two are easy, since they're the best hitters by far. After them, once you subtract the Yankee contenders, as well as Carlos Beltran, who just left the league, Lawton seems to be the best of those remaining. I was tempted to consider Detroit's Alex Sanchez, whose supernatural ability to bunt amazes me, but he has too many other drawbacks.

National League:

Peuh. I don't care about those guys.

Looking at the poll numbers as of today, here's how my choices rank:

• 1B: unranked
• 2B: unranked
• SS: #3
• 3B: #4
• C: #5
• OF: #1, #2, unranked

For non-outfield positions, mlb.com lists the top five. For outfield, they list 14. I'm amazed that Matt Lawton didn't make even that cut.

I see my choices diverge pretty far from popular opinion. With Bellhorn, I may be a little off, since he seems to be universally disparaged by commentators. For the rest, I think the voters are just stupid.

Looking at the polling, it's pretty obvious that, unlike Pete and I, most voters don't give a hoot about batting average. There are some pretty lousy hitters on those lists. Bret Boone is ranked third for 2B. Boone?? He's having a terrible year. He's batting .221! Boone is the second-worst hitter on the worst-hitting team in the league. Of the 86 AL hitters with enough at-bats to rate, Boone ranks 85th. Why on earth would anyone vote for him this year?

I don't know where to find the batting average for the entire AL, but the Mariners' team average is .255, and no other AL team is worse. The All-Star polling shows seven players whose average is worse than that -- Palmeiro 254, E Wilson 252, Chavez 246, Giambi 238, Garciaparra 232, Delgado 227, and Boone). Six of these are former all-stars. Wilson I hadn't even heard of, so I had to look him up. He's the new Yankees second-baseman. Figures.

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