{"id":20092,"date":"2022-07-20T10:38:06","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T10:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/what-youll-remember-about-the-2022-mlb-all-star-game-a-star-was-born-and-his-name-is-julio-rodriguez\/"},"modified":"2022-07-20T10:38:06","modified_gmt":"2022-07-20T10:38:06","slug":"what-youll-remember-about-the-2022-mlb-all-star-game-a-star-was-born-and-his-name-is-julio-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/what-youll-remember-about-the-2022-mlb-all-star-game-a-star-was-born-and-his-name-is-julio-rodriguez\/","title":{"rendered":"What you’ll remember about the 2022 MLB All-Star Game? A star was born, and his name is Julio Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"
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LOS ANGELES \u2014 The problem with baseball is that, too often, your eyes betray you. Or at least, you can’t see the whole story. What you’re watching on the field is barely even the tip of the iceberg in a sport defined by large sample sizes and unexpected value that has to be quantified to be understood.<\/p>\n

This renders the All-Star Game meaningless \u2014 I mean, it was anyway, and those of us who thought it was kinda cool when the outcome determined World Series home-field advantage know to keep that take on the down low \u2014 as a game and even on an individual performance level. Aaron Judge is still the best slugger on the planet even though he went 0-for-2 with a pair of strikeouts Tuesday night in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

We can try to write about how any one moment set a game or a season on course to its ultimate destination, but that is largely poetic license. At All-Star, though, the moments are all there is. They are exactly as big or as fun or as poignant as they made you feel on first watch.<\/p>\n

Or, put another way: No analytics, just vibes.<\/p>\n

In May, when the Seattle Mariners came through New York, Julio Rodr\u00edguez talked about being baseball’s stolen base leader at the time, despite profiling more for power than speed as a prospect.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s so many guys that somebody else will say from the outside, ‘Oh you’re just a power hitter.’ I feel like I don’t gotta limit myself to what you want me to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had played just about 30 major league games at that point and declared that he was \u201ckinda used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He’s played nearly 100 big league games now. His 21 stolen bases are third in baseball and he leads all rookies in bWAR. He was also the only one to make the All-Star Game, and the only one to compete in the Home Run Derby.<\/p>\n

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