Logan Morrison deserves his own All-Star campaign

Corey Dickerson has been getting a lot of love lately from Rays fans when it comes to the All-Star vote. And deservedly so. He has been the best DH in the league this season, and he’s doing ridiculous things like hitting doubles off of pitches that bounce in the dirt. He is also trailing Nelson Cruz by only a small margin, and with one final push Dickerson might be able to overtake Cruz for the starting DH spot at this year’s All-Star Game.

However, there is another Rays hitter who is having nearly as strong a season but isn’t getting the same sort of love: Logan Morrison.

Morrison wasn’t even in the top five at first base in the latest AL All-Star vote update. That’s a disgrace.

Choose any type of measurement of a player that you like, and Morrison is either leading AL first basemen or darn close to it.

He leads all AL first baseman in fWAR (2.4), and he has been worth three times as much as the leading vote getting right now (Eric Hosmer) if we trust FanGraphs version of player value. If you prefer your metrics a bit more traditional, he ranks first in home runs (22), RBI (54), and isolated power (.318). Cycling back to some of the better metrics out there, he has more than 15 more offensive runs than Hosmer this season - again, this shouldn’t be happening.

Now if you want to take Hosmer out of the equation and promote the idea of a lower name on the list like Justin Smoak and Yonder Alonso, you’ll be closer to the right idea, but Morrison still has them beat. Morrison has been a better defender and base runner than both of those guys this season, and it’s not as though he’s been slacking at the plate (as was just shown).

His .251 batting average is the worst of all the names we have mentioned, but if you’re still using batting average to judge a player, you probably shouldn’t be voting for the All-Star Game. His on-base percentage matches nearly all the previous names mentioned (only Alonso has more than an 11-point edge in OBP). Morrison has the best walk rate of the bunch, and if he had a bit more luck with his balls in play (.251 BABIP), his OBP would be on par, if not better than, the rest of the bunch.

If you don’t buy the “if he had a bit more luck” argument when it comes to voting for the ASG and you want to stick with what actually happened, that’s totally fine, I’ll point you back to the aforementioned lead among AL first basemen in: HR, RBI, BB%, ISO, and WAR.

Simply put, Logan Morrison has been one of, if not the, best first basemen in the AL this season, and the fact that he is not even in the top five for the All-Star vote is a disgrace. When you go to make your final votes for Dickerson, make sure to throw a vote (or two or ten) Morrison’s way, because he deserves better than this.