Ranking the Washington Nationals' Best All-Star Game Candidates
Before the season, I could've written down the names of the Washington Nationals' five starting pitchers and it would have only been a slight exaggeration to submit that as a list of the team's top five All-Star Game candidates.
But with the game just two weeks away, the Nationals' rotation is only likely to send one representative to Cincinnati.
A list of Washington's potential All-Stars reads much like the script of the Nats' season as a whole. The starting pitchers are, for the most part, nowhere to be found, and several other players have maxed out their potential to pick up the slack.
If Bryce Harper failed to put up All-Star numbers for the first half of the season, there would've been No. 34 jerseys burning in the streets of D.C. in frustration. But he did, so there aren't.
The more unlikely candidates come in the form of an aging center fielder who began the season on the DL and a newcomer who's played out of his natural position for the entirety of his short Nationals career.
With fan voting determining the starting position of players, Washington is essentially guaranteed to have one starter come July 14 after the latest update revealed Harper is more than five million votes clear of the next closest outfielder.
But the players and the managers get their voices heard next, when they name the All-Star pitchers and fill out the bench. And that's where the Nationals can earn the most All-Star nods.
Five Nats have a shot to join the NL roster at the Midsummer Classic. Here they are, ranked for your convenience, based on likelihood of selection.
5. CF Denard Span
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While Denard Span was sidelined for the first 12 games of the season with a frustrating core injury, his replacement and Washington's center fielder of the future, Michael Taylor, had some convinced the Span era had already met its untimely end. But the 31-year-old's numbers since returning from the DL tell a totally different story.
Span is hitting .305 in 53 games, and he hasn't dipped below .290 since early May. His average is the third-best among NL outfielders, trailing only teammate Bryce Harper and the San Francisco Giants' Nori Aoki.
But the reason Span is all the way down at fifth on this list is two-fold. First of all, he certainly won't be voted in by the fans. The name recognition of NL outfielders like Giancarlo Stanton, Andrew McCutchen, Matt Holliday and Jason Heyward are too much for him to overcome.
And second, the time he's missed due to injury will deter the players and managers from putting him on the roster. Although his original DL stint was just 12 games, Span has missed an additional 11 over the course of the season, limiting him to just 53 appearances while many of his peers come in above 70.
4. RP Drew Storen
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Drew Storen won't be joining Harper in ESPN The Magazine's Body Issue because, according to Storen, "They were worried that they weren't going to have to Photoshop anything," per MASN's Byron Kerr.
But the Nationals' closer has put together a season that could have him join Harper on the NL's All-Star Game roster.
Storen's 23 saves earn him a tie for second in the league, just one behind Pittsburgh Pirate Mark Melancon's 24. And among the NL pitchers with 20 or more saves, Storen has walked the fewest batters.
His numbers are All-Star caliber, but he's at fourth on this particular list because he doesn't have one stat that separates him from the pack. In that group of six NL relievers who've eclipsed the 20-save mark, Storen is third in strikeouts and fourth in ERA, WHIP and innings pitched.
If Storen is going to earn an All-Star selection, his peers will have to put a lot of stock in his performance out of a Washington bullpen that's been highly combustible as a whole.
3. 2B Yunel Escobar
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When MLB released Monday's voting update and Yunel Escobar's name appeared among the top-five vote-getting second basemen, it was both surprising and rational.
It was surprising because the only position he's played all season is third base, and he was a shortstop for his entire career before coming to Washington this offseason. But it was rational because the player with the fourth-highest batting average in the NL should draw some All-Star Game votes.
Escobar's designation as a second baseman is presumably to make room on the ballot for Nats' third baseman Anthony Rendon, who finished fifth in NL MVP voting last season but will not be an All-Star this year, having played just 18 games so far. But no matter where fans find his name, Escobar is worthy of their votes.
His .324 average came out of nowhere this year. He hasn't finished a season with a higher mark since his rookie year, during which he hit .326, and he has yet to record a year with an average over .300 since then. He also sits at fifth in the NL in hits, and he's only struck out 37 times all year.
Escobar is Washington's borderline All-Star with the best chance of actually getting in. His numbers, his consistency and his relative durability are worthy of selection, and those draw higher values from the players and managers who fill out the rest of the roster after the fan vote.
"Yunel has played really well in a position he hasn't played before," manager Matt Williams said via MASN's Chris Johnson. "He's well over .300, he's doing things that he wants to do. He's played very well for us."
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2. RHP Max Scherzer
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Remember when Max Scherzer allowed one hit in a performance some said was "better than perfect"? Remember the next game, when he was one strike away from actually being perfect and settled for a no-hitter instead?
So do the players across MLB, all of whom vote to determine five starting pitchers for each league and none of whom want to do anything to anger Scherzer before they next face him. The Nats ace will, without a doubt, be an All-Star. The only thing left in question is whether or not he'll start the game for the NL.
Scherzer is second in the league in ERA and strikeouts, and he leads the NL in WHIP, innings pitched and strikeout-to-walk ratio.
The only reason Scherzer isn't No. 1 on this list of All-Star candidates is the format in which the voting is set up. So while fans can't vote for pitchers, they've already voted for one of Washington's position players more than 11 million times.
1. RF Bryce Harper
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The tenacity with which fans voted for Harper on this year's All-Star ballot broke the National League record for votes received in a single season, per the Washington Post's Aaron Dodson.
That was last week.
As of Monday's updated results, Harper's numbers are still climbing. And he's putting the league record further out of reach with 11,363,949 votes.
Barring an MLB cancellation of all 11 million of Harper's votes, he will be an All-Star. And if he wasn't already a lock to earn a starting outfield spot for the NL, the numbers for second-leading vote-getter Giancarlo Stanton could slow down in the final days of balloting with the slugger suffering a broken bone in his hand.
After an early career characterized by unfulfilled promise, Harper's 2015 numbers have gone a long way in erasing the 62 games he missed last year and the sub-.280 averages he's turned in after each of his first three MLB seasons.
With a .339/.465/.715 slash line, 24 home runs and 58 RBI, he's not just an All-Star, he's the midseason NL MVP.
All stats courtesy of MLB.com.
Danny Garrison is a Washington Nationals featured columnist on Bleacher Report. He's on Twitter @DannyLGarrison.
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