The All-Star Game is just around the corner and this year's exhibition in Milwaukee will once again feature the game's best and brighest stars, from Alex Rodriguez to Mike Piazza, from A.J. Pierzynski to Junior Spivey.

Huh?

OK, so the All-Star teams aren't always comprised of the biggest names in baseball. Generally, the reserves are picked based on who's having a big first half, and while that's a debatable method, what isn't debatable is that the practice leads to some relative unknowns appearing on your television in prime time.

How many players in this year's crop of randoms will keep playing at an All-Star level? It's one thing to string together 200 good at-bats and get yourself a $50,000 bonus. It's another to be a contributor from start to finish, and avoid the ignominy of going from the All-Star Game to the bench by Labor Day. Here's a look at what some of the more unlikely All-Stars can be expected to do after Tuesday night's festivities are complete:

Shea Hillenbrand, Red Sox
Statheads take a lot of grief for their dismissal of Hillenbrand, whose big April and popularity with Bostonians helped him win the starting job at third base for the American League. The problem isn't with the statheads, though: it's with Hillenbrand. It's exceedingly rare for a player with a 5-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio to succeed. Hillenbrand has 55 strikeouts and 11 walks, almost a perfect match for last year's 61 strikeouts and 13 walks. Despite the change in his approach -- yes, Hillenbrand has taken more pitches in 2002 than he did in 2001 -- he hasn't been able to counter-adjust to the league's pitchers, who have begun to eat him alive

Month  AB   AVG   OBP   SLG  BB
April  91  .341  .390  .582   7
May   109  .303  .345  .523   4
June  109  .275  .286  .440   0
July   21  .190  .227  .238   0

Hillenbrand hasn't walked since May 24, 156 at-bats ago. His last unintentional walk was on May 20. You can't sustain an on-base percentage that helps your team without mixing in some walks, and Hillenbrand has simply stopped doing so. He probably won't be as bad the rest of the way as he's been in June and July. He will, however, be a problem for the Red Sox, who can't afford to carry an OBP sink, and seem committed to playing Hillenbrand no matter how much he's hurting the team.

Alfonso Soriano, Yankees
Soriano actually has an even worse strikeout-to-walk ratio than Hillenbrand does, a whopping 7-to-1 (12 walks, 84 strikeouts). Broad statements are always dangerous, but here's one: no player in history has had a good career with a 7-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Unlike Hillenbrand, Soriano hasn't gone through the kind of extended slump that focuses attention of his shortcomings. He's drawn a walk a week -- whether he's wanted to or not -- and kept his numbers up by simply obliterating the first pitch he sees: Soriano is hitting .527 when he puts the first offering in play, with an obscene .927 slugging average. When he doesn't strike out, Soriano is batting .419. To give you an idea of how far off the charts that is, Babe Ruth hit .406 in his career when he didn't whiff.

One of three things is going to happen. The most likely is that Soriano's performance will slip, as pitchers simply stop throwing him first-pitch strikes, and he goes through an adjustment period in which he learns to lay off a pitch. The second possibility is that Soriano's strikeout-to-walk ratio will improve

The third possibility, which we can't completely discount, is that Soriano is a freak who can do things no player in history has been able to do, and that his .527 first-pitch average and .419 mark when not striking out are his true level of ability.

As much raw talent as he has, I don't think Soriano is that good. I believe he's going to go through a nasty second-half stretch, akin to Hillenbrand's last couple of months, as pitchers force him to get out of his comfort zone and see more pitches. Soriano is at the point in his career where he has to choose between the Juan Samuel career path and the Sammy Sosa career path. It's going to be an interesting story to follow.

Torii Hunter, Twins
Not to harp on a theme here, but Hunter, like Hillenbrand, suffered through a nasty deterioration in his plate discipline after Memorial Day:

April-May: 18 walks in 213 AB
June-July: 4 walks in 111 AB

Hunter's great bat speed has enabled him to keep hitting despite the problems with his decision-making at the dish. He doesn't have Soriano's extreme splits, but a .392 batting average when not striking out is extreme, and suggests that Hunter has been hitting in some good luck.

Of course, Hunter brings more to the table. He's the best defensive center fielder in the AL, and is the only player who can give Andruw Jones a run as the best in the game. His K/BB numbers, while poor, aren't unreasonable for a star player with so-so plate discipline, and don't foretell an imminent collapse. Hunter should continue to slide back towards his career norms while still being an asset for a Twins team that may be able to set its playoff rotation not long after Labor Day.

A.J. Pierzynski, Twins
Anybody remember Don Slaught? The physical resemblance isn't there -- Pierzysnki is 6'3", Slaught was a few inches shorter -- but the two players are similar hitters, line-drive machines who don't walk much but manage to be pretty good players.

The Twins are now using 2½ catchers, with Matt LeCroy splitting backup duties with Tom Prince, so Pierzynski should remain fresh, and away from left-handers, in the second half. Given his height, limiting his time behind the plate, and the concomitant wear and tear on his back, should be a good thing for his numbers. He'll keep pushing the Twins towards the AL Central title.

Derek Lowe, Red Sox
Lowe's return to a regular rotation job -- remember, he came through the minors with Seattle as a starter -- has been a success so far, but the hardest part is ahead of him. Lowe is on pace to throw more than 220 innings, quite a leap from last year's total of 118, and well above his professional high of 170.

Lowe's hard sinker and good command have gotten a lot of the credit for his 2.36 ERA, but a significant factor has been the Boston's improved defense, which has been the best in the American League, and at its best when Lowe is on the mound:

Pitcher          BIPR*
Derek Lowe       .220
Pedro Martinez   .282
Frank Castillo   .260
John Burkett     .319
Rolando Arrojo   .279
Darren Oliver    .339
Tim Wakefield    .205

Other than the knuckleballer Wakefield, Lowe has gotten the best support from his Red Sox teammates. His groundball ways are some of that, but even groundball pitchers have their bad days. Lowe hasn't yet.

There are two reasons to be concerned. One is that Lowe is in uncharted waters; he'll pass his MLB career high in innings pitched in his next outing, and has already shown some signs of fatigue and nagging injury. The Red Sox will need to be careful with him, possibly as careful as they are with Pedro Martinez. The five-day rotation the Sox maintain to help Martinez stay healthy will be a boon to Lowe as well.

The other concern is that Lowe is likely to see a return to the norm in terms of his batting average on balls in play. While his ability to throw groundball after groundball -- there were no flyball outs in his last start -- is a positive, for him to maintain his first-half numbers would be a big surprise. Look for Lowe to slip a bit, as he battles fatigue and the law of averages.

Junior Spivey, Diamondbacks
You hate to want injuries. You hate to have to hope an inferior player hurts himself so that a young player will get the chance he deserves.

The surprise isn't that Spivey is playing well. The surprise is that he got that chance. It took March calamities to befall Jay Bell and Matt Williams to open up a lineup spot for Spivey, who hit the ground ... uh, hitting ... and never looked back. A minor hamstring injury in June put him on the shelf for a couple of weeks, but he came back strong and was rewarded with an All-Star berth, one of the ones the Diamondbacks actually deserved.

Spivey has shown no holes in his game, save some minor complaints about his defense. He's hit for average and power, and walked 33 times against 248 at-bats. You can't ask for more from a player, so expecting him to match that in the second half is a bit much. Put Spivey down for .280/.360/.440 in the second half, closer to what you could have expected at the start of the season, and save him a spot on the lower half of your MVP ballot.

Jose Hernandez, Brewers
With some guys, it's simple. Hernandez has been a good player in the years in which he's drawn walks. His best seasons have been 1998 (40 walks), 1999 (52 walks) and 2002, in which he's already walked 31 times. His current OBP of .357 is a career high by far.

The downside, if there is one, is that Hernandez will almost certainly get enough playing time to break Bobby Bonds' record for strikeouts in a single season; Hernandez came close last year, with 185 whiffs, and is on pace for more than 200 this time around. Look for him to keep playing well enough to stay in the lineup and write his name into the record books.

Odalis Perez, Dodgers
See Derek Lowe.

Pitcher BIPR
Odalis Perez	.228
Andy Ashby	.247
Hideo Nomo	.277
Kazuhisa Ishii	.300
Omar Daal	.235
Kevin Brown	.313

Like Lowe, Perez is getting the best defensive support of any pitcher on the team with the best defense in the league (the Dodgers lead the NL in Defensive Efficiency). Perez has better peripherals than Lowe does, with a fantastic 83 strikeouts and 17 walks in 123 innings.

Other than a 129-pitch start in Colorado in April, Perez has been worked very lightly, thanks to his good command and the low-run-scoring environment of Dodger Stadium. For a pitcher finally recovered from Tommy John surgery, that's a good sign. While there's some concern that he'll wilt as he breaks new ground in innings pitched, his ability to get outs with a minimum of pitches bodes well for him. You can expect some regression, but Perez's outlook is a bit better than Lowe's, mostly due to the better strikeout-to-walk ratio and better environment.

Not all the surprises made the All-Star team. Here are some players who are tearing it up, along with their chance to keep doing so:

Eric Hinske, Blue Jays
Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi's best offseason pickup, and the probable AL Rookie of the Year. Hinske's defense has been much better the last month or so, and he's been the Jays' most consistent hitter. Look for him to have much the same performance in the second half, and go to New York in January to pick up his hardware.

Damon Minor, Giants
J.T. Who? Minor has wrested the first-base job from the veteran Snow by providing the Giants with a desperately needed power bat from the left side.

(Trivia time! Who was the last left-handed batter other than Barry Bonds to slug .500 for the Giants in a season of at least 250 at-bats? Snow, .510 in 1997. Before that, it was Will Clark, .536 in 1991.)

Minor's .282 average is higher than you'd expect, but the walks and power he's providing are real. Left alone and in the lineup, he could be the difference between another disappointing finish and a chance to play deep into October. He should ruin that trivia question.

Vicente Padilla, Phillies
Travis Lee hasn't worked out so well, and neither Omar Daal nor Nelson Figueroa is still around, but the Phillies are getting something from the Curt Schilling deal this year. After jerking him around for a couple of years -- they let a few lousy outings by Padilla out of the bullpen in August of 2000 carry far too much weight -- the Phillies put Padilla in the rotation this spring and let him go.

While he hasn't quite matched his great April overall, he's among the top 10 starters in the league according to Support-Neutral measures, which more accurately refelects his performance than his 3.45 ERA does. Padilla has been a good pitcher for years, and should continue to thrive for the Phillies.

Jason Simontacchi, Cardinals and Elmer Dessens, Reds
Pitchers with strikeout rates below five per nine innings have short shelf lives. Both these pitchers are great stories, refugees from professional leagues in foreign lands, but there's just nothing to recommend about two guys who are at 4.3 and 3.8 strikeouts per nine innings. Look for both pitchers to see their ERAs rise into the 4.00s in the second half. If you have them in a fantasy league, take my highest "Sell" recommendation and run with it.

You can check out more work from the team of writers of the Baseball Prospectus (tm) at their web site at baseballprospectus.com. Joe Sheehan can be reached at jsheehan@baseballprospectus.com.