6 Players Who Should Have Been All-Stars This Year
Jake Arrieta
It's worth noting that of the original eight starting pitchers selected for the National League roster (Max Scherzer, Madison Bumgarner, A.J. Burnett, Gerrit Cole, Jacob deGrom, Shelby Miller, Michael Wacha and Zack Greinke), were not ranked as well by nERD as the American League staff was.
Half of the pitchers originally invited to the All-Star game made the top-10 in nERD for the National League, with Greinke slotting in with the 11th best nERD. The rest are scattered throughout the top-20 nERD with Wacha being 24th. The American League, on the other hand, saw all their selected pitchers with a top-10 nERD within their league.
That means that the National League overlooked a few pitchers who could have strengthened their starters. Carlos Martinez got in as the final fan vote, but even he is only 15th in nERD. Clayton Kershaw was the first (of many) options here, but he finally made the roster in place of Scherzer.
One other pitcher who was sorely overlooked though was Jake Arrieta. We see Cole Hamels and Tyson Ross as viable candidates as well, but Arrieta's stats are much better across the board.
| Top 10 by nERD | Team | W | L | K/9 | BB/9 | HR/9 | ERA | FIP | WAR | nERD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clayton Kershaw* | Dodgers | 6 | 6 | 11.71 | 1.98 | 0.8 | 2.85 | 2.39 | 3.7 | 2.55 |
| Max Scherzer* | Nationals | 10 | 7 | 10.23 | 0.95 | 0.68 | 2.11 | 2.2 | 4.7 | 2.55 |
| Jake Arrieta | Cubs | 10 | 5 | 9.1 | 1.85 | 0.59 | 2.66 | 2.6 | 3.4 | 2.27 |
| Tyson Ross | Padres | 6 | 7 | 9.63 | 4.49 | 0.24 | 3.34 | 2.92 | 2.2 | 2.23 |
| Cole Hamels | Phillies | 5 | 7 | 9.49 | 2.85 | 0.93 | 3.63 | 3.41 | 2.2 | 2.22 |
| Gerrit Cole* | Pirates | 13 | 3 | 8.9 | 2.15 | 0.54 | 2.3 | 2.74 | 2.7 | 2.22 |
| Madison Bumgarner* | Giants | 9 | 5 | 9.15 | 1.74 | 1.06 | 3.33 | 3.3 | 2.1 | 2.2 |
| James Shields | Padres | 7 | 3 | 10.11 | 3.09 | 1.47 | 4.01 | 4.16 | 0.8 | 2.18 |
| Francisco Liriano | Pirates | 5 | 6 | 9.81 | 3.06 | 0.78 | 2.98 | 3.1 | 2.2 | 2.18 |
| A.J. Burnett* | Pirates | 7 | 3 | 7.54 | 2.49 | 0.3 | 2.11 | 2.77 | 2.8 | 2.16 |
Hamels, Arrieta and Ross have nearly identical nERD scores, but that's the only area in which they are close. Ross has the has the slight edge at strikeouts per nine (9.62) of the trio, but Arrieta walks one fewer batter per nine (1.85) than Hamels (2.85). Ross has the worst walk rate (4.49) of the 47 qualified pitchers that were evaluated.
Ross also has an advantage with his home run rate (0.24 per nine innings), which is half of Arrieta's (0.59) and a quarter of Hamels' (0.93). However, Arrieta blows both away with a better ERA, FIP and fWAR in the end.
The stats say more pitchers besides Jake Arrieta should been on the National League pitching staff instead of who was selected, but if I could only change out one guy on the staff, it would have to be Arrieta.
