By Blake Dowson
Letting fans vote on the MLB All-Star Game is awesome.
It brings fans closer to the game and gives them a glimpse of what it feels like to be involved in the game. They have a direct impact.
I vote every year. I look forward to it, and I pour over advanced defensive metrics and each player’s WAR to see who is the most deserving to get the nod.
Unlike the (vast?) majority of fans, I don’t like how the All-Star game has turned into a popularity contest. So I spend time trying to decide who actually deserves to play in the Midsummer Classic. I’m not saying each fan should study a pitcher’s batting average on balls in play or a hitter’s strikeout rate, but it could help to avoid some goofy lineups in the future.
What seems to happen each summer is a team with a little bit of fan-base momentum behind it rallies to fill the ballot and get their guys in. You saw it with Kansas City last year, when Omar Infante almost started at second base when he had the lowest batting average of all qualifying players in the American League. He shouldn’t have even been allowed inside the Cincinnati city limits during All-Star week.
The same has happened with the Chicago Cubs this season. Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant should start the All-Star game, and they are. Great. But players such as Ben Zobrist, Addison Russell, and Dexter Fowler should not be in the starting lineup.
Zobrist, the NL starting second baseman, is having a good year. He’s hitting .291 with a .398 on-base percentage, good numbers.
But Daniel Murphy, the Washington National’s second baseman that’s hitting a league-leading .349, should be the starter.
Russell has driven in more runs than anybody expected this year, but he’s still fourth among NL shortstops in that category. Furthermore, he’s hitting .242 this season.
Look at a guy such as Cory Seager, the shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and tell me he hasn’t played well enough to start the All-Star Game. He’s hitting .305 with 17 home runs and 41 RBIs, and he leads all NL second basemen in WAR.
But perhaps the biggest star power vote was that of Bryce Harper, who was the leading vote-getter among NL outfielders. Harper, as polarizing as he and his hair are, should not be in the starting lineup.
The Washington right fielder is the reigning league MVP, yes, but he hasn’t played like it this season. A .258 average hardly screams All-Star starter, just like his 48 RBIs — eighth in the league among outfielders — or his WAR, which is 13th among outfielders.
When at his best, Harper is one of the top three players in this game. But there have been other guys that have played a whole lot better than he has to this point, and they should be rewarded for it. Guys such as Christian Yelich, Starling Marte, Ryan Braun, Carlos Gonzalez, and Stephen Piscotty— all of whom rank higher than the three NL starters in the outfield (Harper, Fowler, Yoenis Cespedes) in WAR.
Go vote for Kobe Bryant as a starter during his final year in the NBA, because it really doesn’t matter.
But it does in the MLB. The winning league gets home-field advantage in the World Series, and for that one singular reason, All-Star voting needs to be taken more seriously so we can get the best players on the field.