2014 Japan All-Star Series

Today MLB announced that as earlier as this November, they will send a team of All-Stars to Japan to resume the Japan All-Star Series.  The series was last played in 2006 and has not been scheduled due to the World Baseball Classic.  I love making rosters for these types of exhibition games and this is the team I would send across seas.  Past rosters have included 27 players made up of 12 pitchers and 14 position players.  Enjoy!

Pitching Staff

Rotation

Justin Verlander - DET

Jose Fernandez - MIA

Clayton Kershaw -LAD

Max Scherzer - DET

Bullpen

Fransisco Rodriguez - MIL

Sergio Romo - SF

Craig Kimbrel - ATL

Glen Perkins -MIN

Koji Uehara - BOS (he could play for team Japan as Japanese players have done in the past)

Aroldis Chapman - CIN

Brad Ziegler - ARI

Will Smith - MIL

Kenley Jansen - LAD

Position Players

C Yadier Molina - STL

C Buster Posey - SF

C Jonathan Lucroy - MIL

1B Paul Goldschmidt - ARI

1B Miguel Cabrera - DET

2B Robinson Cano - SEA

SS Troy Tulowitzki - COL

3B Matt Carpenter - STL

UTL Ben Zobrist - TB

OF Giancarlo Stanton - MIA

OF Carlos Gomez - MIL

OF Mike Trout - LAA

OF Jose Bautista - TOR

2012 All B-WAR Team

As we close in on the holidays, I was sitting in my basement bored to death.  So I thought I'd make a realistic roster (a team composed the way a normal team would be) and see what it would look like with the top players based on Baseball Reference WAR.  Here are the results and so you don't have to take out your calculator the team combined for a 141.7 WAR.

And now, the roster:

Lineup

C  Buster Posey-SF (7.2)

1B  Joey Votto-CIN (5.6)

2B  Robinson Cano-NYY (8.2)

3B  Miguel Cabrera-DET (6.9)

SS  Erick Aybar-LAA (4.0)

OF  Mike Trout-LAA (10.7)

OF  Andrew McCutchen-PIT (7.0)

OF  Ryan Braun-MIL (6.8)

Rotation

1. Justin Verlander-DET (7.6)

2. David Price-TB (6.4)

3. Clayton Kershaw-LAD (6.2)

4. Matt Harrison-TEX (6.2)

5. Johnny Cueto-CIN (5.8)

Bench

C Yadier Molina-STL (6.7)

INF Adrian Beltre-TEX (6.7)

INF David Wright-NYM (6.7)

OF Alex Gordon-KC (6.2)

OF Michael Bourn-ATL (6.0)

Bullpen

1. Fernando Rodney-TB (3.7)

2. Aroldis Chapman-CIN (3.6)

3. Craig Kimbrel-ATL (3.2)

4. Rafael Soriano-NYY (2.6)

5. Ryan Cook-OAK (2.6)

6. Rafael Betancourt-COL (2.6)

7. Nate Jones-CWS (2.5