Chris Sale Should Unequivocally Start The All-Star Game

The 2017 MLB All-Star Game rosters were released on Sunday, and as you’d probably expect All-Star Game lineups to be, they are stacked. Unfortunately, fan voting remains the worst and of course, fans voted in Mike Trout as a runaway starter for the American League, who hasn’t played in six weeks and cannot play in the All-Star Game. But, that’s past my point. I just wanted to air out my lone grievance.

Like I said, obviously, these rosters are stacked for both leagues. We’ve got guys like Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge, Jose Ramirez and Corey Dickerson headlining the AL. The NL features Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon, Zack Cozart and Marcell Ozuna. Both league’s pitchers headlining are pure pornography with guys like Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen and Corey Knebel for the NL, and guys like Chris Sale, Jason Vargas, Craig Kimbrel and Andrew Miller for the AL.

This arises the annual question: who should start the game, more importantly for the American League? It couldn’t be Chris Sale; he started last year, didn’t he?

Yes, but when you look at the options and really think about it, the American League’s starter kind of needs to be Chris Sale, even simply by using the naked eye. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is on Sale’s level this season. The Red Sox would be nowhere without him. He’s arguably the team’s leader on and off the field, and is one of the most dominant pitchers in the game. I could go on and on forever about my love for none other than Christopher Allen Sale, but I’ll cut it off right there.

Let’s put our nerd caps on for a minute and look at the stats, comparing Sale’s numbers to the other potential All-Star starters’ numbers, shall we?

First things first, the starting pitcher options for the AL are as follows: Chris Sale, Ervin Santana, Corey Kluber, Jason Vargas, Dallas Keuchel, Luis Severino, Yu Darvish, Michael Fulmer and Lance McCullers Jr. Now, let’s narrow down our options. We can probably put Severino, Darvish and Fulmer to the side. Keuchel is hurt and won’t pitch until after the All-Star break, so we can rule him out. Therefore, that leaves us with solid five legitimate options of Sale, Santana, Kluber, Vargas and McCullers Jr.

Let’s start off simple with everyone’s favorite stat: ERA. Sale’s currently stands at 2.61, Santana’s at 3.07, Kluber’s at 3.02, Vargas’ at a league-leading 2.22 and McCullers Jr.’s at 2.69. Whether you’re a fan of earned run average or not, there you have it. Nothing too exciting.

But, let’s look at a true, legitimate ERA-esque stat: FIP (fielding independent pitching). This is, again, a true ERA. It only counts what the pitcher himself can control, like strikeouts, hit by pitches, walks, hits, home runs and all that jazz. It completely takes out the defense and errors behind the pitcher, thus, giving you a true earned run average. Anyways, Sale’s FIP is by far the best out of the group’s at 2.01. Santana has a 4.72 FIP, Kluber a 2.61, Vargas at 3.48 and McCullers Jr. with a 3.10. I like using FIP much better compared to ERA for obvious reasons, but take either for what you will. In my opinion, FIP tells a better, more realistic story. If you think that way, then you can easily see that Sale is the best pitcher in the American League. While Vargas stunts a beautiful ERA, Sale wins the legitimacy contest.

Along with FIP, I love using WHIP. Both are fairly similar and again, much more thorough than others. Sale’s WHIP is a steaming hot, league-leading 0.895 with Santana’s at 1.087, Kluber’s at 0.996, Vargas’ at 1.115 and McCullers Jr.’s at 1.069. WHIP of course stands for Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched, so this gives you another good idea of just how dominant Sale truly is, especially when you put him next to the next best guys in baseball.

If you really want to know just how often and how completely foolish Sale makes opposing batters look, let’s look at his strikeout-to-walk ratio. Buckle up for this one: a league-leading 7.55. Put that up against the others, and it’s just plain stupid: Santana’s ratio is 2.26, Kluber’s is 5.25, Vargas’ 3.08 and McCullers Jr.’s 4.12. We all know that Sale never wastes a pitch, works efficiently and his stuff is never wild, but holy cow. Thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who has ever had to step up to the batter’s box against Sale. More importantly, major congratulations to anyone who has ever managed to get a hit off of Sale.

Now, I’m not the biggest fan of WAR, especially when it comes to pitchers, mainly because of the way it’s calculated and how differently it’s calculated by different websites and people, but at the end of the day, it is a valuable stat, especially when you consider Sale’s utmost importance to his team. Sale’s WAR currently stands at 3.9 while Santana’s is 3 on the dot, Kluber’s at 2.9, Vargas’ at a whopping 4.4 and McCullers Jr.’s at 3.4.

To summarize that numerical roller coaster, Chris Sale is a damn good pitcher no matter how you look at it. There are good pitchers, then there are dominant pitchers, and then there is Chris Sale. We are all running out of words to describe his complete and utter dominance and everybody who has the privilege of watching him every five days cherishes every pitch he makes. There is one “problem” in regards to whether or not he should start this game or not that I mentioned earlier: he started the 2016 All-Star Game, too.

In this day and age, we rarely see back-to-back All-Star starts by a pitcher. Managers rightfully want to give new guys a chance to shine every year. Starting the game signifies that you are the best out there, but you want to shake it up every once in awhile too, I suppose. In this case, forget about that. Who cares if he started it last year? Sale is the most dominant pitcher in the American League by far and some could make a case saying that he is the most dominant pitcher in all of baseball. I’m 110 percent positive that Sale couldn’t care less about starting or not, but if anybody deserves to start in back-to-back years, it’s Chris Sale. Whether you’re watching him with the naked eye, looking at stats or just looking at the box score, you know just how dominant this guy is.

The pure influence that Sale has had on his new teammates in Boston this season is so incredible to see. Almost every pitcher has learned something from him and applied it to their own game, whether it be his personal pace of play, a bit of his attitude or even something mechanics-wise. Not to mention, Sale is probably the Red Sox’ leader out of this fairly sensitive group of guys. Given that David Ortiz is gone, somebody needed to take over, and Sale decided to man the ship. It’s not often you see a pitcher lead a team on the diamond and in the clubhouse, but Sale is doing just that.

It’s scary to think about where this Red Sox team would be without Sale, and that can’t be swept under the rug. With the rest of the rotation struggling to find themselves and has little overall stability, Sale has been THE guy every five days. When he takes the mound, you know he’s going to give the team their very best shot to win out of the five-man rotation. He gives you that critical reassurance at a time where reigning Cy Young Award winner Rick Porcello has struggled to find his 2016 self and the back end of the rotation has dealt with multiple injuries, consistencies and new faces.

It remains to be seen whether or not Terry Francona will find Sale worthy of another All-Star Game start, but it’s fairly obvious that he deserves it, nonetheless. When you stack him up against the next best AL pitchers, there’s a pretty wide margin between him and them. He’s the single most consistent pitcher out of all of them and has the best and most dominant stuff, as well. No matter what happens, he’s sure to get a couple of innings under his belt at some point early on in the game, and by God will that be a treat to watch.