2011 AL Central All-Division Team Set in Stone
By Wally Fish
It took a couple weeks and two fan votes, but the AL Central’s squad is finally set and ready to face off again its AL East and AL West counterparts.
In the most recent fan voting, Mark Buehrle lapped the field for the honor of being our team’s #5 starter. He received 36 votes (52%) to win the spot. Gavin Floyd received 16 votes (23%) and Carl Pavano 12 votes (17%) came in 2nd and 3rd respectively. Fausto Carmona finished a distant 4th with 8%. He received just 5 of the 69 votes cast.
While I thought Floyd was the correct choice for the spot, I completely understand why more than 50% of the voters went with Buehrle. Considering this “contest” generated less than half the votes that our 3B poll did, most of you didn’t think the result was ever really in question. If that’s not the case, it certainly didn’t generate the outpouring of support that Valencia and Inge saw come their way.
This is the roster that will be representing our division this year:
- C – Joe Mauer* – Minnesota Twins
- 1B – Miguel Cabrera* – Detroit Tigers
- 2B – Gordon Beckham – Chicago White Sox
- SS – Alexei Ramirez – Chicago White Sox
- 3B – Danny Valencia^ – Minnesota Twins
- OF – Shin-Soo Choo* – Cleveland Indians
- OF – Delmon Young – Minnesota Twins
- OF – Alex Rios – Chicago White Sox
- DH – Billy Butler – Kansas City Royals
- SP – Justin Verlander* – Detroit Tigers
- SP – Francisco Liriano* – Minnesota Twins
- SP – John Danks – Chicago White Sox
- SP – Max Scherzer – Detroit Tigers
- SP – Mark Buehrle^ – Chicago White Sox
- SU – Matt Thornton – Chicago White Sox
- CL – Joakim Soria – Kansas City Royals
(*denotes unanimous selection; ^ indicates selection by fan vote)
I’d like to give a Puckett’s Pond tip of the cap to Steve Kubitza (Deep Left Field), Michael Engel (Kings of Kauffman), Travis Miller (Southside Showdown), Zac Snyder (Motor City Bengals) and John Parent* for their time and efforts with this project. It generated some interesting discussion along the way and it was truly a blast to go through this process with them.
*While he is the Lead Writer of Motor City Bengals, John pinch hit as our White Sox representative during the position player balloting since Travis and Kevin were just getting set-up and settled on Southside Showdown.
With the roster set, most of our work on this project is in our rear-view mirror. But we’re not quite done. There will be a few more fan votes in the coming weeks as our beloved AL Central team takes on the AL West and AL East for the right to face off against the National League’s champion.
Stay tuned!