Major League Baseball released their All-Star ballots yesterday afternoon, for the first season ever an all electronic endeavor, yet the same problems from the analog editions still exist. Back in 1970 when the right to vote for the All-Star game was given back to the fans from the managers, coaches and players who had previously held that role, it made sense to create the ballots as early as possible.
For hundreds of thousands of ballots to be created for each Major League city ready to distribute by the beginning of May, it would be important to create a simple list of a starting eight for each team before the season started. While that practice continues today, the issues of creating the ballots themselves does not. Since a digital ballot can be created or changed in extremely little time, there is no reason managers should have to state exactly who their starting lineup will be a week before Spring Training ends, but for some reason, they are required to. This has lead, as it does every year, to some very poor choices on this year’s ballot.
Of the 135 players on the American League ballot, 23 had less than 50 at bats (40 for catchers) when the ballot’s were introduced or were on the disabled list. This means that 17% of the options for the team are essentially out of the race. For the National League, there are 18 of 120 players (15%) who are immediately poor choices. The most egregious examples are Tommy LaStella (currently on the DL for the Cubs and has just six at bats) along with Domonic Brown, Nick Swisher, John Jaso, Coco Crisp, J.J. Hardy, Anthony Rendon and Hunter Pence, none of whom have a single Major League at bat in the 2015 season. Going out instead of coming in, Jed Lowrie is deserving of your vote since he will keep his .300/.432/.567 at least until the All-Star break since he isn’t expected to come off the DL until after the Mid-Summer Classic.
While there don’t appear to be any replacement players deserving for an All-Star game start, it’s still very early in the season and it would be a much more interesting race if players like Addison Russell, Roberto Perez, Jeff Francoeur, Michael Taylor and many others were eligible for voting without a write in ballot.
While there isn’t a simple fix, because players returning to their teams in short order will ultimately play more games than the reserves who replaced them, there has to be a way to at least remove players like Lowrie, Brown, Yan Gomes and any others who will obviously not be considered for an All-Star appearance. The Cubs did think ahead, naming Kris Bryant as their third baseman despite the fact that he didn’t break camp with team, but that shouldn’t mean the other teams are stuck with their choices months after they make them.
The second issue is that it is very early in the season. For example, in the past five days 2014 All-Star Brandon Moss changed from a .162 hitter with two RBI into a .236 hitter with 14 RBI while three time All-Star Hanley Ramirez has knocked in eight of his 20 runs and four of his nine home runs. Since a player’s season can completely be turned around in less than a week, why is voting for a game in mid-July even open in April. There is more than enough time between now and then for a hitter to go from worst in the league to top at his position (Edwin Encarnacion is one player with a good chance to do this) and it isn’t fair to them for others to get a head start.
Of course, it’s not like any votes now matter anyway. Last season, Jose Bautista lead all players with 5.85 million votes and as time nears the event, voting increases. This does help make up for over emphasizing a hot April, but it also leads the question of why is there any voting now? If votes made the final week before rosters are announced are going to decide the team, why not wait until the beginning of June to distribute the ballot. By then, pretty much every team knows who their starters will be for the duration and players like Swisher, Rendon and Pence who have yet to play, will have either proven themselves or not. Either way they will at least have had the opportunity to show up before voting begins.
This at least could help avoid situations like in 2001 when Nomar Garciaparra ranked among the leaders in short stop voting despite not playing a game that year until July 29th. Every year certain players, particularly those on the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Dodgers, get that unnecessary boost due to a larger fan base and starting voting later in the season could alleviate that somewhat.
There is no question that already most teams would admit that their starting nine (or eight for NL clubs) doesn’t fully resemble the one that represents them on the All-Star ballot. Now that Major League Baseball has fully embraced the digital age, maybe it is time to revamp the voting process a little further by not adhering to standards that were created for the printing and distribution processes of the early 1970’s.
