Pirates manager Clint Hurdle is letting Major League Baseball and the players have it for not including outfielder Andrew McCutchen on the 2011 MLB All-Star Team.
"The MLB whiffed, that he is not one of the guys getting to be in this vote thing. They whiffed on that. That’s an absolute whiff. If you’re looking to put your ballclub together and a guy who can come off the bench and do some things, the numbers he has – you can look at metrics, you can look at straight batting average, you can look at OPS, stolen bases – he’s an All-Star.
"The players, they whiffed. Everybody whiffed on this one for me in Andrew’s case. Me being his manager, I’m going to take my little 42 seconds of soapbox and remind everybody of what a whiff job they did on him not being on the team."
Yeah. Just to put it in simple terms, McCutchen currently ranks third in Wins Above Replacement (a stat that calculates a player’s value to his team in both offense and defense) among all position players in baseball. And you don’t have to rely on advanced stats to see that he’s an All Star if you don’t want to. He’s the Pirates’ best hitter by a mile, there are no glaring weaknesses in his game, and his defense has taken a big step forward this year. Not including McCutchen was, frankly, ridiculous.