Yankees lineup against Oakland, Fangraphs picks the American League All-Stars

The Yankees lineup against the Oakland Athletics is out:

Gardner 8, nix 6, cano 4, Teixeira 3, hafner Dh, Youkilis 5, wells 7, Suzuki 9, Stewart 2 kuroda 1 #yankees

— Meredith Marakovits (@M_Marakovits) June 13, 2013

Jayson Nix is batting second again, despite the fact that he is only a .214/.294/.390 hitter at that position in the lineup. Shouldn't the goal be to get people on base before the heart of the lineup comes up? Whatever Nix is, he isn't a top of the lineup hitter.

The Yankees need a new outfielder because they can't keep going with Ichiro Suzuki (.176/.263/.176 in the last week) and (Vernon Wells .188/.235/.188 in the last week) on an everyday basis. I understand that they will be platooned once Curtis Granderson returns, but the team can't just sit around and wait because they'll just waste the productive month the Yankees had to keep them in contention. This offense is struggling and it needs an overhaul, throwing out the same guys night after night is not going to make it better.

Fangraphs has posted an article to break down who should be on the 2013 American League All-Star Game by using WAR, a stat most people don't use to vote for candidates. Four Yankees have made the list, one were obvious, some not so obvious.

In their "The Game Would Be A Farce Without Them" section, which is for great players having great seasons, Robinson Cano (1.6 WAR) and Mariano Rivera (0.9 WAR). Hiroki Kuroda (1.7 WAR) and Brett Gardner (2.2 WAR) made the list of reserves.

Unfortunately, Cano ends up as a reserve to starter Dustin Pedroia, who has a 2.6 WAR on the season. But fear not, Yankees fans, because Gardner was given the starting nod with the third highest WAR on the roster, despite having the second lowest wRC+ of the six outfielders. Fangraphs has him batting ninth and Cano would be batting seventh once he replaced Pedroia in the game.