Is Arenado #ASGWorthy? Without a doubt

The Rockies reside in the Mountain Time Zone, which means they benefit from neither East Coast or West Coast bias. They play their home games 5,280 feet above sea level, so their offensive numbers are always taken with a serious grain of salt. And they haven’t reached the postseason since 2009, which means the casual baseball fan is largely unfamiliar with their roster.

For all of these reasons, the collective consumption of the greatness of Nolan Arenado is probably not what it ought to be. There is a distinct disconnect here between the accomplishments he notches and the acclaim he receives.

So let this serve as a noble attempt to diminish that disconnect and get you to do the right thing with your 2016 Esurance All-Star Game Ballot.

• Is Nolan Arenado #ASGWorthy? Cast your Esurance ASG ballot

By any objective measure — and of course barring some amazing in-season surge elsewhere — Arenado should be the starting National League third baseman.

And at the moment, it’s not particularly close.

Arenado entered Tuesday with the best OPS (.979) among qualified NL third basemen — by 85 percentage points. His 14 homers were second in the Majors only to the 15 hit by Yoenis Cespedes. His 34 RBIs were tied for fifth in baseball and ranked first among NL third basemen. And among Major Leaguers qualified at the hot corner, only Manny Machado (2.7) had a higher Baseball Reference-calculated WAR mark than Arenado’s (2.4). The next-highest WAR for an NL third baseman was Matt Carpenter’s 1.7 tally.

The problem with a column such as this one is that it can feel like a zero-sum situation. If I praise Arenado as an obvious choice for the Midsummer Classic, some will take it as a knock on Carp, who is a pivotal igniter atop what has been one of the more dynamic offenses in the NL, or on Kris Bryant, who earned All-Star honors in his rookie season and figures to win …

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