Bochy botches All-Star pick by passing on Cards’ Wong

You can blame San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy for the omission of Kolten Wong from the National League All-Star team, but bigger culprits are Wong’s peers, the players and the whole convoluted process.

The St. Louis Cardinals’ second baseman, despite running a solid second in the fan vote, was not among the three players at the position named to the NL squad for the July 14 game in Cincinnati.

But, then, filling out All-Star rosters has become a curious process not unlike the making of sausage, where a lot of ingredients are stuffed into the final product.

The fans, players and managers all have votes, and MLB has a couple of policies that must also be accommodated along the way. MLB thinks all that can be served in fashioning each league’s 34-man roster, but as the results each year remind us, that rarely happens.

There should be little quibbling over the choice of Miami’s Dee Gordon as the starting second baseman. He was voted in by the fans, capturing 1,974,194 more votes than Wong. In this case, the fans knew what they were doing. Gordon led MLB in hitting for much of the season and his average at the time of selection was .339. Moreover, he had the best WAR (Wins Above Replacement) value at 2.89 and a .990 fielding average.

It is much harder to see how the players, who select eight position players, chose Colorado’s DJ LeMahieu over both Wong and San Francisco’s Joe Panik.

Wong had more RBIs, a better on base percentage and higher WAR than LeMahieu. Unfortunately, Wong’s average, .279, was hurt by a .228 slump over the previous 30 days.

LeMahieu, in fact, trailed five other NL second basemen in the latter category and wasn’t among the top five vote-getters.

What LeMahieu had going for him was a better batting and fielding average and, perhaps more to the point, a higher profile due to two more seasons in the big leagues and a Gold Glove.

Which brings it down to the manager’s picks. Bochy gets nine selections — five pitchers and four position players. In this case, he was also obligated by MLB’s no team left behind policy to make sure that each had a representative. He used three choices to add Justin Upton (San Diego), Francisco Rodriguez (Milwaukee) and Jonathan Papelbon (Philadelphia), fulfilling that requirement.

And, of course, he picked two of his own guys, pitcher Madison Bumgarner and second baseman Panik. Panik had numbers fairly equal to Wong’s, so it came down to that ages-old All-Star staple, personal preference.

Had the Cardinals won the NL title last year, their manager, Mike Matheny, would have had the honors and likely picked Wong.

What Bochy at least could — and should — have done was put Wong’s name among the candidates for the 34th and final vote representative for which voting ends Friday. That was Shane Victorino’s avenue to the All-Star Game in 2009 and ’11, and it could have worked for Wong as well.

Pity he didn’t get the chance.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.