MLB All-Star week continues its festivities tonight with the 88th All-Star Game, this year hosted at Marlins Park in Miami, Florida. Yankees stud outfielder Aaron Judge captivated baseball fans with his mighty display in the Home Run Derby last night. Tonight could be disappoint in comparison due to one big rule change in 2017.
The Rules and Starters
As usual, there are 33 players from the American League and the National League selected to the All-Star Game, and starters are determined by online fan voting. Here are the starters for each squad:
| Player | Position | Team | League | Player | Position | Team | League |
| Salvador Perez | C | Royals | AL | Buster Posey | C | Giants | NL |
| Justin Smoak | 1B | Blue Jays | AL | Ryan Zimmerman | 1B | Nationals | NL |
| Jose Altuve | 2B | Astros | AL | Daniel Murphy | 2B | Nationals | NL |
| Jose Ramirez | 3B | Indians | AL | Nolan Arenado | 3B | Rockies | NL |
| Carlos Correa | SS | Astros | AL | Zack Cozart | SS | Reds | NL |
| Aaron Judge | OF | Yankees | AL | Bryce Harper | OF | Nationals | NL |
| Mookie Betts | OF | Red Sox | AL | Charlie Blackmon | OF | Rockies | NL |
| George Springer | OF | Astros | AL | Marcell Ozuna | OF | Marlins | NL |
| Corey Dickerson | DH | Rays | AL | Clayton Kershaw | SP | Dodgers | NL |
| Chris Sale | SP | Red Sox | AL |
As noted above, there was a huge rule change put into effect thanks to a new CBA deal this past December: As of 2017, the All-Star Game will no longer grant home-field advantage to the winning league. That’s a huge deal in terms of betting on the game, since now (as is the case with the NBA All-Star Game and NFL Pro Bowl) there’s essentially no incentive for players to win outside of bragging rights. The betting markets haven’t really adjusted: Here are the odds for 2016 versus this year . . .
- 2016: AL (-105), NL (-115)
- 2017: AL (-105), NL (-115)
. . . but the rule at the least changes the confidence we can have in which side will win.
Prop Edges
I broke down the rosters this year in terms of average Wins Above Replacement (WAR) for both sides:
But, again, it’s hard to use any of this data — either this year’s or historically — to gain an edge when no players are incentivized. Perhaps we can still gain an edge in selecting the All-Star Game MVP. Let’s look at some historical data and see which players have won and if there are some identifiable trends:
It is notable that the MVP since 2000 has come from the winning team, but that’s less useful this year given the difficulty of predicting the winning team. The only real useful trend from historical winners is that the MVP has been an offensive player every year save for 2013, when Mariano Rivera won in 2013. That was the last season for the revered New York closer, who won the award across town in NYC at Citi Field.
Perhaps #NarrativeStreet is the way to go again in 2017. Here are the odds:
| Player | Odds |
| Marcell Ozuna | 8/1 |
| Giancarlo Stanton | 9/1 |
| Bryce Harper | 10/1 |
| Aaron Judge | 14/1 |
| Mookie Betts | 16/1 |
| George Springer | 16/1 |
| Jose Altuve | 18/1 |
| Nolan Arenado | 18/1 |
| Buster Posey | 18/1 |
| Cody Bellinger | 20/1 |
| Field | 3/2 |
Marcell Ozuna and Giancarlo Stanton might be surprising choices to lead the field in odds, but #NarrativeStreet is a crowded place. Plus, it’s not as if they’re bad players. They’ve been reasonably productive and popular this year (per our Trends tool and DFS Ownership Dashboard). They’re playing at home in Marlins Park, and this is the first All-Star Game since Miami pitcher Jose Fernandez died in a boating accident. It would be a great story for one of his teammates to win the award this year.
If you don’t want to take the narrative route, look for guys who can go yard and drive runs in; almost all of the previous MVP winners have posted multiple RBI historically. Ozuna is tied for first among all batters in baseball this season with 70 RBI, so he’s probably a solid choice in his own right, but also look at Nolan Arenado, who is starting for the NL and also boasts a league-high 70 RBI. The American League has won the last four MLB All-Star Games and 16 of the last 19 that had a final result (the 2002 game ended in a tie). The game is essentially a coin flip tonight because of the rule change, but bettors might hammer the AL given their historical success. Thus, NL players could be undervalued in terms of odds to win the MVP.
One last thought: I wouldn’t look too hard at batting splits against righties and lefties. Chris Sale and Clayton Kershaw are starting the game for their respective leagues, and while they’re both lefties it’s likely that they’ll pitch just an inning before being relieved, possibly by a pitcher with different handedness. Last year, Sale started and went just a single inning; Corey Kluber came in after him and got one inning of work, and no pitcher went more than 1.2 innings. Don’t look too hard at splits at batters; in fact, it might be wise to find the batters who have the least extreme splits — those who are no-splits hitters, like Judge, who has a nonexistent +0.003 ISO split over the past year against righties. Batting splits can be found in our Models.
Good luck and enjoy the game — and be sure to do some post-ASB research with the FantasyLabs Tools when the regular season starts again.
