The ideal 25-man National League All-Star roster
When it comes to the All-Star Game, one increasingly common refrain in recent years has centered around the oversized rosters. Even as Major League Baseball attached real stakes to the exhibition in the wake of the infamous 2002 tie, granting home-field advantage in the World Series to the winning league's representative, the rosters ballooned to the point of spring training-level ridiculousness due to the requirement that each team be represented and the pressure on each manager to try to play everybody. The 2014 game featured a record 62 players but was merely one of four times in the last six years that at least 60 have played.
From 1933, the year of the inaugural All-Star Game, through '97, roster sizes for each league never topped 28 men. The 1998 expansion to 30 teams increased rosters accordingly, and they grew to 32 in 2003, 33 in '09 and 34 in '10. Thankfully, the Collective Bargaining Agreement agreed to last December not only removed the World Series tie-in but trimmed roster sizes back to 32, a small step in the right direction. Still, by the time injured and ineligible players are replaced, roughly 10% of all 25-man rosters will have been designated All-Stars, watering down the honor considerably.
With that in mind, Gabriel Baumgaertner and I have constructed 25-man rosters for each league with the following setup: eight starting position players, one designated hitter, one backup catcher, three backup infielders, two backup outfielders, six starting pitchers and four relievers. Not every team is required to have a representative. Instead, we're focused on fielding the best possible teams right now, focused primarily but not entirely on 2017 performance; players’ established levels beyond the past half-season were used in making tough choices (though less so than if I were left to my own devices). What follows here is my National League squad; Gabriel's picks for the AL are here. All statistics are through July 5, and unless otherwise noted, all WAR figures cited are from Baseball-Reference.com.
