Rotohelp's Complete 2004 AL All-Star roster is listed at the bottom of the article. I plan to spend today's column discussing our AL selections and tomorrow discussing our NL choices. The starting lineup represents the players for whom we voted in the balloting.

Our votes and selections were based on a number of criteria, but primarily we focused on selecting the players who are performing best this season. While we haven't made excuses for players with injuries, we did not discount anyone simply because they might decline the honor and need to be replaced. We feel that those deserving of an All-Star berth should be named to the team, even if they are in a full body cast or on crutches like Jason Kendall in 1999. They can easily be replaced after their accomplishments have been recognized. Players with an asterisks on the below roster are those that we feel might choose not to play the game.

We also believe that every team deserves representation. Managers should also make certain to get everyone in the game except maybe one or two pitchers (at least one starter needs to be available should the game go deep into extra innings), even at the potential expense of losing this exhibition. This game is for all the fans, and watching for your home team player to get in the game and make his fans proud is a part of the contest. How else will kids convince their parents to let them stay up to watch Lee Smith pitch through the 12th inning?

As Tim briefly discussed in yesterday's Fantasy Rx, we select players by first using objective criteria like park-neutral statistics, and then narrow the list with traditional quantitative statistics before insuring all teams are represented. We relied upon the stats at Baseball Prospectus to select most of our roster.

MLB added another level of voting to the 2002 game, allowing fans to select the 30th player from a list of five for each league provided by the All-Star Managers after the rest of the players have been named. In response to the 2002 tie, MLB expanded rosters to 32 last season, so the 32nd man is now determined in this manner. We've included our five player lists below.

Rotohelp's 2004 American League All-Stars

Starting Lineup:
1B - Frank Thomas, CHW
2B - Ron Belliard, CLE
SS - Carlos Guillen, DET
3B - Melvin Mora, BAL
C - Ivan Rodriguez, DET
OF - Vladimir Guerrero, ANA
OF - Manny Ramirez, BOS
OF - Gary Sheffield, NYY*

Bench:
Victor Martinez, C, CLE
Ken Harvey, 1B, KC
Juan Uribe, 2B, CHW
Mike Young, SS, TEX
Alex Rodriguez, 3B, NYY
Lew Ford, OF, MIN
Hideki Matsui, OF, NYY
Matt Lawton, OF, CLE
Vernon Wells, OF, TOR*
Carl Crawford, OF, TB
David Ortiz, 1B, BOS
Candidates for 30th Roster Spot Vote:
Hank Blalock, 3B, TEX
Travis Hafner, 1B, CLE
Scott Hatteberg, 1B, OAK
Jorge Posada, C, NYY
Miguel Tejada, SS, BAL

Pitchers:
Mark Mulder, OAK
Curt Schilling, BOS*
Kenny Rogers, TEX
C.C. Sabathia, CLE*
Tim Hudson, OAK*
Brad Radke, MIN
Freddy Garcia, CHW
Javier Vazquez, NYY
Pedro Martinez, BOS
Mariano Rivera, NYY
Eddie Guardado, SEA
Francisco Rodriguez, ANA

Alternate Pitchers:
Ryan Drese, TEX
Jake Westbrook, CLE
Kelvim Escobar, ANA
Roy Halladay, TOR