What if Bill James is right and the players are replaceable? Let’s look at the 2015 All Star Game starters

Look closely, these are actors pretending to be major leaguers.

Bill James made some people sad with this comment he reportedly tweeted, since deleted, sourced here from Yahoo.

“If the players all retired tomorrow, we would replace them, the game would go on; in three years it would make no difference whatsoever. The players are NOT the game, any more than the beer vendors are.”

Is it possible? Could the game go on without its biggest stars (and you know my take that baseball has no stars)

Let’s look at the 2015 All Star Game starting lineups (via CBS Sports)

AMERICAN LEAGUE

1. Mike Trout, CF — Los Angeles Angels
2. Josh Donaldson, 3B — Toronto Blue Jays
3. Albert Pujols, 1B — Los Angeles Angels
4. Nelson Cruz, DH — Seattle Mariners
5. Lorenzo Cain, RF — Kansas City Royals
6. Adam Jones, LF — Baltimore Orioles
7. Salvador Perez, C — Kansas City Royals
8. Jose Altuve, 2B — Houston Astros
9. Alcides Escobar, SS — Kansas City Royals

Dallas Keuchel, LHP — Houston Astros

NATIONAL LEAGUE

1. Andrew McCutchen, CF — Pittsburgh Pirates
2. Todd Frazier, 3B — Cincinnati Reds
3. Bryce Harper, RF — Washington Nationals
4. Paul Goldschmidt, 1B — Arizona Diamondbacks
5. Buster Posey, C — San Francisco Giants
6. Anthony Rizzo, DH — Chicago Cubs
7. Jhonny Peralta, SS — St. Louis Cardinals
8. Joc Pederson, LF — Los Angeles Dodgers
9. DJ LeMahieu, 2B — Colorado Rockies

Zack Greinke, RHP — Los Angeles Dodgers

Hmmm. Three seasons later, how many of those players matter? Five? (I got five). Ten? Surely not twenty. I’m pretty sure baseball can survive without Todd Frazier.

But what about the Mets. Let’s look at our 2015 NL Champions…(via Baseball reference)

And feel free to tack David Wright on there. Many gone, many just don’t matter. As for the rotation….

OK so 40% here stil matter.

I think James is right. In there years we all would have moved on. As soon as Joe Young, the replacement OFer hits a big HR, someone will be selling t-shirts and you’ll be buying them. You root for the laundry. You don’t care about any of those 2015 All Stars and you don’t care about most of those 2015 Mets now.

So I’m sorry Bill James made some people sad…but he may be right.