We sat here in 2015 and just about anyone outside of Kansas City cried foul play when there was a Royal projected to start at every position for the American League in the All-Star Game. Fast-forward a year and we have the same situation, except there are Chicago Cubs leading in almost every position in the fan vote for the game.
To say the Cubs are dominating on the field would almost be an understatement, but are each of these Cubs deserving of an All-Star nod just because the team is experiencing success? That seems to be a hot topic of late.
I’ve seen a lot of disagreement from fans across all forms of social media. But then you see Cubs fans come right back with messages on how they make sure to max out their allotment of votes daily, voting all Cubs — and even writing in David Ross.
Just did my daily #VoteCubs because I love my @Cubs! #GoCubsGo pic.twitter.com/w1ENG9Apuk
— Mark (@MarkMizzouSteel) June 22, 2016
I’ve also seen more fans in the past two seasons complain about how MLB selects All-Stars, and the fan vote in particular, than ever before.
Cubs fans might vote Heyward into the ASG, which would cost Cespedes his spot. Heyward is hitting .239/.330/.340. Fan voting needs to end.
— Rising Apple (@RisingAppleBlog) June 22, 2016
https://twitter.com/cm7com/status/745644381093371904
@crockower I agree 200%. Get rid of fan voting. The home field advantage is more important. You don't see me voting in Duda
— Justin Castaldo (@jcastaldo13) June 22, 2016
While other fans seem to be incredibly irritated at fan voting, it doesn’t appear that a single one of them is really doing anything besides complaining about it. While sure, voting a Jason Heyward in over a Yoenis Cespedes would leave a player off the roster that could potentially win the game for the National League, there are others that argue if this is the roster fans want, give it to them.
But Cespedes isn’t the only player with a case. Addison Russell leads the Colorado Rockies’ Trevor Story by 380,000 votes. Russell has played very good defense, but offensively he has a .237/.331/.375 slash line with six home runs, which Story had six in his first week while carrying a .264/.324/.549 line. Kris Bryant leads the Rockies Nolan Arenado by 470,000, and while Bryant has had a very remarkable season, he has played as many games at 3B (42) as he’s played in the outfield. Arenado on the otherhand is widely considered the best three bagger in all of baseball (apologies Manny Machado) and trumps Kris in every offensive and defensive category. Ben Zobrist leads the Washington Nationals Daniel Murphy by almost 500,000 votes, and while he is having a fantastic season (.311/.417/.481) he is also being outplayed by Murphy (.352/.395/.583). Then lastly Anthony Rizzo leads San Francisco Giants’ Brandon Belt by 1.4 million votes and Paul Goldschmidt by another 150,000. While Rizzo has come back with a vengeance of late, his previous month and a half did not scream NL’s leading vote getter.
I want to make it clear, I don’t argue with voting all Cubs, hell I did it myself as a youngin back in the 1980’s. You could also make a case for several Cubs, and outside of a Heyward, Russell, Miguel Montero, and Jorge Soler the others very well could, or should be on the roster. But the argument will always be in favor of the guys that aren’t on the roster, or got snubbed.
While these are the rules currently in place, should MLB do something about the fan vote? It was started as a way to generate more fan interest in the game, but is there too much on the line when the teams are playing for home field advantage in the World Series?
Personally is like to see fan voting stay, but amended to only count for a certain percentage of the actual voting of players. If the fan vote counted as 1/3rd, then players counted as 1/3rd, then coaches/executives counted as the last third you would get a better representation. Heck, I’d even back players, managers, executives selecting the starting roster and fans voting for bench players (no pitcher vote).
What do you think? Let us know in the poll and comment!
