Another year, another All Star Game voting gone wrong. Last year it was the Royals fans attempting to vote in an entire starting lineup–for the longest time 8 of the 9 starters were bound to be Royals, even struggling Omar Infante, who didn’t even end up making the team. This year it’s the Cubs. Yes, I get that the team is resurging and fans are excited, but do all of them really deserve to start? No. Putting the fans totally in charge of voting is obviously wrong, but what is the right thing to do?
Let’s start with the situation this year. Only 5 Cubs are in line to start, but that’s their entire infield + Dexter Fowler. Rizzo definitely deserves his spot at first base. Second baseman Zobrist is also having a great year, so I can argue for him to start, but there are more deserving players, like Daniel Murphy that should start over him. Shortstop is where the glaring error is. Addison Russell is having a not-so-stellar year offensively, batting a mere .237. He is the Omar Infante of 2016. There are other deserving shortstops out there. You’ve got rookies Trevor Story, Corey Seager, and Aledmys Diaz who are all deserving, not to mention Brandon Crawford, who’s having another solid year, as well as Zack Cozart. Point being, there’s too many other options at shortstop for Addison Russell to even be deserving of starting, or be on the team. Kris Bryant is definitely deserving of an All Star berth, but he is not the best third baseman in the league, not to mention he’s only played half of his games there this year. When looking at the best overall third baseman, Nolan Arenado is the obvious choice. Arenado is leading the league in home runs and RBI, and he’s batting 25 points higher than Bryant (.270 for Bryant vs .295 for Arenado). And before you call him a Coors Field product, note that he has hit basically half of his HRs on the road and half of his RBIs on the road, as well as about half of his total hits on the road. Not to mention his superior defense, making him the best overall player and therefore the one who deserves to start. And lastly, Dexter Fowler, who I can make a case for to start, as he’s been having a great year so far (though is currently on the DL).
So, how can MLB fix the issue of fan voting? I don’t think fan voting should be eliminated all together. The fans need a sense that they have some role in picking these teams, otherwise they may become disinterested in the All Star festivities. The fans would feel that they have no control over the game, and soon enough they could choose not to watch if they don’t feel like it is a game they want to watch since they did not have a say in who plays in it.
Currently, MLB has the players, managers, and coaches vote on reserves for the game, as well as pitchers. So, the structure is: fans for starters, and players, coaches, and managers for the rest of the team. Here in lies the issue. The fans, who may not be the most educated, have all of the say in who starts, while the organizational folks such as the players and coaches only have the say in who pitches and backs up the starters. Why not combine it all, and let the fan vote, the players’ vote, and coaches’ vote all have weight in who starts? If desired, the system for backups and pitchers could remain the same, but they could also adapt this method for the entire vote. That way if the fans make a mistake, the fan vote does not carry all of the weight. This is the most logical solution, I think.
Another option that I can think of is having MLB limit who can be eligible to be voted for. Start the voting later in the season, rather than at the end of April, when guys have established themselves, and limit the voting to a certain amount of the best players in order to eliminate the “Infantes” from even having a chance to be voted in. While this would certainly limit these players, there are definitely flaws in this system. For one, if a guy gets called up and establishes himself as a great player, he would not be eligible to be voted for, unless MLB gives the option to add players who either come on later in the voting period and establish their presence or are called up and establish themselves. This is an interesting concept that arose in my head, and it definitely could work, though I think the other option of weighting the votes is a stronger, better option for voting.
The problem with All Star Game voting is that the fans have all the freedom and all of the say in who starts and the players and coaches only have the say in the backups and pitchers. It is too separated. There is no way to balance out who starts in the current method of voting. MLB could solve this problem by weighting the votes between fans, players, and coaches, thus limiting the chance that the fans could send a lackluster player to start the game. Or, MLB could limit and maintain who can be voted for in order to prevent the chance of a not-so-great player making it to the game. The system as it is now is very flawed, but it can be fixed.
