Two Nats starters on my 2015 NL All-Star team

The deadline for all-star voting is Thursday, and the teams will be announced soon. To figure out which Nationals deserve to be on the all-star team, each year I put together an NL all-star team. For the last two years, I’ve used a systematic methodology based on statistics.

I won’t go through all the details of the methodology here (you can read the other article if you’re interested), but the main idea is that I give quite a bit of weight to both this season and last season’s performance, plus a little bit of weight to career performance. I want to avoid selecting players who just hit a hot streak for half a season. My method does allow for a few exceptional players to make the team based on a single season of play (Joc Pederson makes my team), but generally I’m looking for those who’ve played very well for at least a year and a half.

Here’s my 2015 all-star team. For position players, I show their weighted runs created (wRC+) over the last season and a half in parentheses; for pitchers I show their ERA– and FIP–:

National League – Starters

C – Buster Posey – Giants (143)

1B – Paul Goldschmidt – Diamondbacks (171)

2B – Dee Gordon – Marlins (108)

3B – Todd Frazier – Reds (136)

SS – Jhonny Peralta – Cardinals (125)

LF – Giancarlo Stanton – Marlins (157) – on DL, replaced by:

LF – Joc Pederson – Dodgers (146)

CF – Andrew McCutchen – Pirates (160)

RF – Bryce Harper – Nationals (159)

DH –Anthony Rizzo – Cubs (159)

SP – Max Scherzer – Nationals (69; 69)

Reserves

C – Jonathan Lucroy – Brewers (118)

C – Derek Norris – Padres (114)

1B – Adrian Gonzalez – Dodgers (134)

2B – Joe Panik – Giants (125)

3B – Nolan Arenado – Rockies (121)

3B – Matt Carpenter – Cardinals (122)

SS – Troy Tulowitzki – Rockies (146)

SS – Brandon Crawford – Giants (112)

OF – A.J. Pollock – Diamondbacks (126)

OF – Jason Heyward – Cardinals (110)

OF – Justin Upton – Padres (133)

OF – Carlos Gomez – Brewers (125)

DH – Freddie Freeman – Braves (141)– on DL, replaced by:

DH – Joey Votto – Reds (139)

SP – Clayton Kershaw – Dodgers (63; 56)

SP – Zack Greinke – Dodgers (67; 80)

SP – Johnny Cueto – Reds (65; 87)

SP – Cole Hamels – Phillies (73; 85)

SP – Jacob deGrom – Mets (70; 71)

SP – Shelby Miller – Braves (86; 111)

RP – Aroldis Chapman – Reds (53; 34)

RP – Trevor Rosenthal – Cardinals (65; 76)

RP – Jonathan Papelbon – Phillies (54; 69)

RP – Kenley Jansen – Dodgers (67; 46)

RP – Francisco Rodriguez – Brewers (65; 100)

Shelby Miller and Jacob deGrom made my team because of the requirement that every team be represented; they’ve been good, but my statistical system would have picked A.J. Burnett and Jake Arrieta ahead of them.

So there are only two Nationals on my team—the best overall player (Bryce Harper) and the best pitcher (Max Scherzer). Several others came close—Jordan Zimmermann and Drew Storen (and Anthony Rendon if he hadn’t been on the disabled list), but Harper and Scherzer were the only Nats to make the cut this time.