Mayor Lo Duca's Political Machine

"Be True to the Orange and Blue!"

That's what the Mets TV ad just told me to do. How does one stay true to the orange and blue, you might ask? By voting for Paul Lo Duca for the All-Star team. That was the sole message of the 15 second ad.

With two hits already tonight Lo Duca has raised his average above .300, which puts him right behind Brian McCann among qualified NL catchers. But Paul lacks any secondary skills beyond scrappiness. Look how the field stacks up on an OPS basis:

.806 Russell Martin (LA)
.763 Benji Molina (SF)
.749 Johnny Estrada (MIL)
.732 Michael Barrett (CHC)
.723 Paul Lo Duca (NYM)

That Martin character also leads NL catchers in runners thrown out (albeit on a lot of attempts) and has stolen 11 bags for himself, putting him ahead of the likes of Soriano, Freel and Beltran.

Hence the Mets' appeal to team loyalty in this TV campaign, which strikes me as rather unseemly given the team's natural market size advantage in the balloting process.
I mean there are already many, many more people voting for Paul Lo Duca than there should be, and God knows Reyes and Wright will win huge and deservedly so.

I'd much rather the team spent that money, say... scouting Adam Dunn than artificially and shamelessly maximizing its All-Star team representation.