No matter what Sly and the Family Stone say about the matter, everyone is not a star – especially in baseball, where talent is distributed in a pyramid. For every superstar there are 10 stars, for every star, 20 decent players, for every decent player,100 journeymen. We tend – for this reason, among others – to focus on the handful of players who can turn a bad team into a decent one, or a good one into a pennant winner.

The best way to appreciate the impact of Barry Bonds, for instance, may be to note that for over a decade he consistently turned dead-average San Francisco Giants teams into 90-game winners. Last year, with Bonds having maybe his best season, a rather undistinguished lot of Giants won 91 games. This year, with no real difference from last year’s team save the absence of Bonds and a subpar season from ace Jason Schmidt, the Giants are on pace to win 70.

St. Louis Cardinals second baseman Mark Grudzielanek is, to say the least, no Barry Bonds. He may in fact be the major leagues’ blandest and least distinct player. Big league second basemen are hitting .275 BA/.340 OBA/.413 SLG this year – Grudzielanek is hitting .300/.339/.418. He’s neither fast nor slow, neither weak nor powerful, neither a notable fielder nor an inept one. At 35, he’s not young in baseball terms, but neither is he notably old. There’s nothing at all memorable about him, but the Cardinals’ ability to identify players of his caliber – outfielder Reggie Sanders and shortstop David Eckstein come to mind – is one of the main reasons why they’ve been the best team in the league for the last five years.

So, in the spirit of celebrating the fairly anonymous Mark Grudzielaneks of the world, here is an All-Average team for 2005.The main criterion I used were on-base and slugging averages compared to positional average, with ties going to those who have never said or done anything particularly memorable. By definition, this team would, with an average bench and pitching staff, play at .500 – but that’s no knock. Give these guys an Albert Pujols or Barry Bonds, and they could make a run at the World Series.

FIRST BASE – RAFAEL PALMEIRO, BALTIMORE
(.277/.352/.467; positional average .277/.359/.469)

The notorious Mr. Palmeiro is, of course, anything but indistinct right now, but on the field the aged slugger is the definition of average: neither helping nor hurting his team. It’s worth noting that the former star is one of the most common species of average player, and that goes a long way towards explaining the ludicrous amounts of money stars make. Even in their dotage, long after their skills have declined, they’re good enough that teams don’t have to worry about them.

SECOND BASE – MARK GRUDZIELANEK, ST. LOUIS
(.300/.339/.418; positional average .275/.340/.413)

Aside from a high batting average, for which he compensates with a relative unwillingness to draw a walk, Grudzielanek has no skills that tag him as good or bad. In only one area is he notably below average, and that’s his salary – he’s making $1 million this year, compared to the MLB average of $2.6 million. Getting this kind of production on the cheap explains why the Cardinals are able to pay out the nose for the likes of Pujols, Jim Edmonds, and Scott Rolen and still field a fully balanced team.

THIRD BASE – JOE RANDA, SAN DIEGO
(.277/.339/.460; positional average .269/.339/.432)

Here’s a man who gives Grudzielanek a run for his money as the most average player in the majors; I’d say the tiebreaker is the oddly leering expression Randa makes while digging in at the plate, which makes him look like the Joker. Randa has had the same season every year for half a decade while bouncing around from team to team. He now finds himself manning third base for a team trying to win a division title with a .500 record. This seems rather appropriate.

SHORTSTOP – JIMMY ROLLINS, PHILADELPHIA
(.269/.314/.393; positional average .269/.325/.394)

Rollins is a fine example of another sort of average player – the one who’s incorrectly thought of as a star. He’s quick on the bases, exceptionally durable, and has more power than he’s showed this year. But some negatives like a mediocre average, inability to draw a walk, and unimpressive defense end up balancing out the positives. The difference between the Phillies and Cardinals is that the Phillies pay players like this as if they were stars, which leaves them too short in the pockets to get the pitching they need.

CATCHER – TOBY HALL, TAMPA BAY
(.286/.319/.389; positional average .255/.319/.395)

Toby Hall does what he does. This season he’s hitting about 30 points higher than usual, so his OBA is a bit higher than his usual .300, but otherwise he’s having the exact same season he always has: nothing special with the leather, nothing offensive with the bat, and the lowest strikeout rate you’ll ever see on such a mediocre hitter. (Hall strikes out about once every 10 at-bats.) This might not sound like much, but it sure sets him apart from his teammates.

RIGHT FIELD – NICK SWISHER, OAKLAND
(.256/.330/.470; positional average .273/.347/.456)

Here we come to still another common sort of average player – the guy at the beginning of his career. Swisher, a first round draft pick for the A’s a couple of years ago, has a good shot at making an All-Star team or two in his career, but in the meantime he’s holding down a job in right field quite nicely. The ability to identify which rookies can step right in is one thing that separates the A’s from the dumber competition.

CENTER FIELD – CARLOS BELTRAN, METS
(.267/.325/.434; positional average .274/.339/.427)

On the one hand, this isn’t really what anyone was expecting; on the other, it’s good to see that even in a season in which he’s been both injured and in a funk, Beltran hasn’t been hurting the Mets relative to his peers. I doubt he’ll be on any list of this type at this point next year.

LEFT FIELD – COCO CRISP, CLEVELAND
(.296/.345/.446; positional average .274/.345/.449)

The real tragedy of the Indians is that when presented with the chance to go years with Coco Crisp and Milton Bradley playing next to one another, they had to trade Bradley. I hope Crisp maintains this level of play for years; any day in which no ballplayers are named after a breakfast cereals is a bad one.

So there you have it. Some of these players are reputed stars, some reputed scrubs, and this year they’ve all occupied that hazy ground in between stardom and ignominy. They shouldn’t – average players are fairly rare and hard to lay hands on, and as a class they deserve more recognition than they get.