If the voting for the 2015 MLB All-Star game in Cincinnati ended today, there would be seven Kansas City Royals starting for the AL. Thankfully, that is not the case. While the Royals are coming off an American League pennant and are currently leading their division and the AL, there should be nowhere near seven Royals starting the midsummer classic. In fact, if the most deserving players at each position actually started the All-Star game, the Royals would probably have zero representatives. To see for myself which players should take the field in Cincinnati, I used the Wins-Above-Replacement statistic. Admittedly, using this measurement alone might not yield the best results but, compared to other statistics, I feel it most adequately measures a player’s production. Using FanGraph’s measure of WAR, the starting nine for the AL at this point in the season would be Josh Donaldson at 3B, Xander Bogaerts at SS, Jason Kipnis at 2B, Miguel Cabrera at 1B, Russell Martin at C, Nelson Cruz at DH, and outfielders Mike Trout, Josh Reddick, and Yoenis Cespedes.
Royal Flush
Although the Royals are having a great season and many of their players are having good individual years, they really shouldn’t have any starters. Because they are leading the AL, Lorenzo Cain, and maybe Salvador Perez or Alcides Escobar, could start, but those are the only Royals who even have an argument to be an All-Star starter. Cain (.281/.333/.399) could sneak in because as an OF he has three spots to start in and he is also just decimal points behind the best option in terms of WAR. The SS position in the AL isn’t very strong and Escobar is having a fairly good season, (.265/296/.355), so he could seemingly take the spot over Bogaerts, who plays for a last place team. Lastly, Perez (.286/.299/.472), could make a case over Martin, but then again Stephen Vogt of the Athletics is also having a better year than Perez, so his only arguable merit is that he plays for the Royals, who are better than the Athletics and Blue Jays. The other Royals who are leading the polls currently (Hosmer, Gordon, Morales, and Moustakas) have no business starting. Josh Donaldson is the clear cut choice at third over Mike Moustakas. Multiple OFs (Adam Jones, Michael Brantley) deserve the spot over Alex Gordon. Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera are having better seasons than Eric Hosmer, and Nelson Cruz is the only choice for DH. Sorry, Kendrys Morales.
However, if the Royals remain atop their positions or other Royals take over at the other OF spot or at 2B, MLB shouldn’t intervene. The fans have been solely responsible for voting for the starters in the All-Star game since 1970 and have done a fairly good job every year. This Royals takeover is simply an outlier, and will probably never happen again. Royals’ fans deserve all the credit in the world for showing crazed support for their players; Perez, Cain, Escobar, and Moustakas possess the highest overall vote totals, and shouldn’t be punished just because their fans are voting for them as much as MLB allows. Although I think the fans do a fine job every year, if MLB wants to change the voting in future years the fan vote should still count for something. Taking it away completely would hurt some of the appeal of the game. Further complicating the matter is the fact that the All-Star game decides home field advantage in the World Series. Having fans vote for starters paints the game as an exhibition, though it really isn’t. Funny how that works. If MLB wants to keep with the nonsense of having the game decide home field, then fans shouldn’t get all the power. The game means too much.
MLB should have manager and player votes count for 70 percent of the vote and have fan votes count for 30 percent. Something like that would make the vote more objective, but would not completely take it away from the fans. Giving it completely to the players or managers doesn’t solve the occasional voting problems either because it would still result in biased voting, even if it would be to a lesser degree. Managers would give the nod to their players and players would vote, more often than not, for teammates or former teammates. While I don’t want to see the Kansas City Royals vs. the NL All-Stars in Cincinnati on July 14, MLB made its bed by giving all the power to fans and now simply has to lie in it. At least, if the AL wins the game and the Royals make it back to the World Series, they will actually deserve home field.
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