Stuffing the ballot box is sooooo 2012. That’s the apparent mindset of Giants fans, who pissed everyone off a couple years back when they voted three Giants (Melky Cabrera, Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval) into the National League starting lineup and propelled some other surprising candidates to gargantuan vote totals.
Brandon Belt nearly got four million votes, which put him in second (way behind Joey Votto’s 7.3 million). Brandon Crawford, who was hitting .232/.282/.329 on 6/30/12, got over 3.6 million votes to finish a much closer second (300,000 votes behind) to Rafael Furcal.
Most ridiculous: Aubrey Huff got 1.9 million votes and finished 14th among outfielders, while Freddy Sanchez finished fourth among NL second basemen with almost 2.3 million votes despite not playing a single inning.
No such tomfoolery this year:
Latest All-Star totals. Looks like Giants won’t have a starter: pic.twitter.com/GRYivutWlh
— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) July 1, 2014
As you can see from the most recent vote totals, Brewers fans have rallied around the team that has seen an even bigger turnaround since 2013 than the Giants. After a disappointing 74-88 finish last season, the Brewers currently have the best record in the National League. The resulting jubilation in Wisconsin has put a Brewer in front of the highest-ranking Giant at each position.
The only undeserving starter Milwaukee will end up with is Aramis Ramirez. If we’re looking at true stars, David Wright is probably the guy. If first half stats float your boat, nobody touches Todd Frazier.
Rickie Weeks is Milwaukee’s Freddy Sanchez, relatively speaking. Scooter Gennett is the team’s starting second baseman these days (for good reason), and Weeks has only started 25 games. But the most egregious result is probably second place for Jean Segura, the 10th-best shortstop in the National League according to Fangraphs.
Jonathan Lucroy should probably start this year, and he’s going to finish second to Yadier Molina.
I checked to see if there were any special reasons why the Brew Crew turnout has been so strong, but other than a half off deal on some Brewers/Phillies tickets and the chance to win a sweepstakes if you vote 21 times, there’s nothing extra here.
Unless Giants fans are coming up with some way to hack the system at the last minute, they’ll be without an All-Star starter for the second consecutive year. There wasn’t much sense of urgency last year, since Bruce Bochy was the manager (the Giants got two reserves and two pitchers on last year’s All-Star team).
Without Bochy in the mix, the Giants might have trouble getting more than one player (the minimum) in this year’s game.
- Buster Posey? Nah (unless NL carries three catchers, Lucroy’s the guy behind Yadi)
- Hunter Pence? Maybe (he gets the Giants’ lone spot according to ESPN’s projections)
- Brandon Crawford? Nah (leads all shortstops in triples, but that’s about it)
- Madison Bumgarner? Maybe (4th in strikeouts, tied for 4th in wins)
- Tim Hudson? Maybe (6th in ERA, 7th in WHIP, well-respected 38-year-old)
- Jean Machi? Nah (up until a week ago, he had a shot — not anymore)
