Believe it or not, the Phillies’ left fielder, in his ninth season in Major League Baseball, has never appeared in an All-Star Game. Burrell has only once finished a season with an OPS+ under 100 (that nightmarish 2003 season) and routinely finds himself in the 30 HR, 100 RBI area by season’s end. Add to that his gift of excellent strike zone judgment – close to or above 100 walks in the past three seasons and on pace again this season – that keeps his on-base percentage hovering near the .400 mark, and his .500-ish slugging, and you have to wonder why this guy has never started an All-Star Game.
Realizing that All-Star Game selections are a wholly unreliable way of judging a player’s success, I was interested nonetheless, and decided to root through Burrell’s splits. Surprisingly, his overall first- and second-half production doesn’t vary all that much: .846 OPS in the first half; .869 OPS in the second half.
Looking throughout his career, here are his best first-halves:
2002: .929 OPS, 22 HR, 63 RBI
2006: .885 OPS, 19 HR, 58 RBI
2004: .873 OPS, 15 HR, 62 RBI
2005: .871 OPS, 17 HR, 63 RBI
After that, there is a significant drop-off in OPS: .821 in ’00; .812 in ’01; .786 in ’07; and .678 in ’03, so we can presume that in those four years, he shouldn’t have even been a consideration.
I decided to look through the All-Star Game rosters and see if Burrell had been snubbed in any of those years (Italicized names signify starters).
2002: Barry Bonds (1.342 OPS); Sammy Sosa (1.059 OPS); Vladimir Guerrero (.959 OPS); Lance Berkman (1.053 OPS); Andruw Jones (.849 OPS); Adam Dunn (.996 OPS); Luis Gonzalez (.885 OPS); Shawn Green (.970 OPS).
2006: Alfonso Soriano (.888 OPS); Carlos Beltran (.995 OPS); Jason Bay (.927 OPS); Andruw Jones (.848 OPS); Matt Holliday (.974 OPS); Carlos Lee (.916 OPS).
2004: Barry Bonds (1.421 OPS); Sammy Sosa (.939 OPS); Lance Berkman (1.008 OPS); Carlos Beltran (.913 OPS); Ken Griffey, Jr. (.862 OPS); Moises Alou (.836 OPS); Bobby Abreu (1.009 OPS); Miguel Cabrera (.908 OPS).
2005: Bobby Abreu (.955 OPS); Carlos Beltran (.754 OPS); Jim Edmonds (.942 OPS); Andruw Jones (.930 OPS); Moises Alou (.909 OPS); Jason Bay (.930 OPS); Miguel Cabrera (.958 OPS); Luis Gonzalez (.828 OPS); Carlos Lee (.864 OPS).
We can say (roughly) that in 2002, Burrell deserved it over Andruw Jones and Luis Gonzalez; in 2006, he deserved it over Jones; in 2004, he deserved it over Ken Griffey, Jr. and Moises Alou; and in 2005, he deserved it over Carlos Beltran, Gonzalez, and Carlos Lee.
Granted, he would have been a reserve in those four seasons, but an All-Star nonetheless. OPS isn’t the stat most people look at, though, when they’re selecting All-Stars, and Burrell’s AVG/HR/RBI were almost always less than or equal to the players selected ahead of him. Defense may also have been accounted for, and Burrell isn’t exactly a Gold Glove candidate every season, though he’s finished T-5th, T-4th, third, and fourth in outfield assists from 2007 going back to 2004, respectively.
Will Burrell be snubbed again in 2008? It’s highly unlikely. Along with teammate Chase Utley, Burrell has been one of the most productive hitters in all of baseball, ranking sixth in the National League in OPS, eighth in doubles, T-3rd in home runs, T-2nd in RBI, and T-2nd in walks. Of the OPS leaders ahead of him, none are outfielders. Josh Willingham, Nate McLouth, and Justin Upton are the next three outfielders with the best OPS.
Burrell has been getting a lot of media coverage, especially since he is a free agent at the end of the season and there’s a chance he may not be returning to Philadelphia. In addition, Burrell, along with teammate Utley, are the only Phillies regulars who have been hitting. Burrell and Utley have a 180 and 206 OPS+, respectively, and no other regular has an OPS+ over 71 (that high score belongs to Geoff Jenkins). In other seasons, Burrell was outshined by Utley, Ryan Howard, Bobby Abreu, Jim Thome, Scott Rolen, and Mike Lieberthal, not to mention some of the pitchers (Tom Gordon, Billy Wagner) who may have pushed him out.
In his ninth season in Major League Baseball, Burrell is almost
a lock to not only be nominated, but to start in his first career All-Star
Game. This is good news for Burrell and his fans, but bad news for anyone thinking about signing him because the longer he continues to hit, the more expensive he becomes. If Burrell keeps it up, he may be hitting himself out of Philadelphia!