After the All-Star Game selections last week, let's see how the fans did in selecting the starting lineups by comparing the All-Star starters to the Total Runs leaders. Total Runs is a statistic created by Baseball Info Solutions that combines offense, pitching, defense, baserunning, and an adjustment that allows for comparison across positions into one number to recognize the total contribution of each player.

The fans were close in their selection of the American League starting lineup. There are only four players in the starting lineup that are not Total Runs leaders. Josh Donaldson is a victim of a strange circumstance. He leads all players in baseball with 99 Total Runs, but Manny Machado is third with 93 and was eligible at third base and not shortstop on the AL ballot. In a perfect world, Donaldson would start at third base and Machado would start at shortstop, where he has a significant edge in Total Runs over both starter Xander Bogaerts (79) and Total Runs leader Francisco Lindor (87). Instead, Donaldson will have to come off of the bench. Another significant difference is the selection at first base. Chris Davis has 14 more Total Runs than the All-Star selection Eric Hosmer.

A hot topic of the All-Star selections this year was the all-Cubs infield. We can see that Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant lead Total Runs at their respective positions. Ben Zobrist trails Daniel Murphy by 12 runs, but the biggest discrepancy is in the selection of shortstop. Addison Russell has 22 fewer Total Runs than Brandon Crawford. We can see that there are at least three outfielders who have more Total Runs than Bryce Harper, who has the most Total Runs among the selected All-Star outfielders. Carlos Gonzalez leads Dexter Fowler, who has the fewest Total Runs among selected outfielders, by 23 Total Runs.