MLB All-Star voting is supposed to reward first-half performance but the numbers tell a different story. Time and again, players with stronger stats are passed over for bigger names, proving popularity still outweighs production when it matters most.
The Major League Baseball All-Star Game starting spots should be determined by a player's first-half performance, but it’s becoming apparent that popularity, not production, is the deciding factor.
Each year, All-Star voting highlights the problem of fans selecting starters based more on popularity than merit. Players who put together strong first-half performances are passed over in favor of stars with larger fan bases. It’s too often that fan voting rewards popularity over performance.
To see just how flawed the fan voting can be, take the names away and let the statistics tell the story. The story it tells is that there is a clear case of popularity being rewarded.
Example 1
Player A: .340 batting average, .856 OPS, 3.8 WAR, 107 hits, 21 doubles, three triples, six home runs and 35 RBI.
Player B: .286 batting average, .897 OPS, 3.0 WAR, 83 hits, 15 doubles, two triples, 17 home runs and 57 RBI.
Player C: .230 batting average, .705 OPS, 1.5 WAR, 42 hits, seven doubles, no triples, nine home runs and 21 RBI.
Based on just the numbers alone, Player A should not only have a spot in the final two, but he should be the clear favorite to start leading in five of the eight major offensive categories while also posting the highest WAR. Yet Players B and C are the options fans can pick from in the final round of All-Star voting.
Example 2
Player D: .287 batting average, .888 OPS, 5.1 WAR, 88 hits, 13 doubles, four triples, 17 home runs and 45 RBI.
Player E: .251 batting average, .793 OPS, 0.9 WAR, 49 hits, 10 doubles, one triple, seven home runs and 22 RBI.
Player F: .276 batting average, .785 OPS, 0.8 WAR, 50 hits, eight doubles, no triples, seven home runs and 31 RBI.
Player D, like Player A, should be in the final round of All-Star voting and has the strongest case to be an All-Star starter, considering he dominates every statistical category compared to the other two Players. But despite his dominance, fan voting ultimately determined that Players E and F have had better seasons than Player D.
That’s the thing about numbers, they don’t and can’t lie. You can’t spin them or misinterpret them like you can with words. And the numbers tell you who has been the better players on the field with unbiased precision.
Baseball player success is usually defined by those numbers. That is, until you reach All-Star starter voting, where suddenly the numbers no longer seem to matter.
Based on the statistics alone, Player A, Otto Lopez of the Miami Marlins, and Player E, Pete Crow-Armstrong of the Chicago Cubs, should at minimum be in the final round of voting if not the ones starting at shortstop and in the outfield at this year’s Mid-Summer Classic in Philadelphia.
Instead, it’s Mookie Betts, whose WAR is 2.3 points lower and who does not lead in a single major offensive category, who has taken one of the spots over Lopez and others.
Meanwhile, Teoscar Hernández and Ronald Acuña Jr., by the numbers, are nowhere close to having the on-field production that Crow-Armstrong has delivered this season, yet both earn a spot. Acuña WAR is 4.2 points behind Crow-Armstrong, while Hernández trails by 4.3.
For a player like Lopez, who spent years working to reach this point and has earned the opportunity to start in the All-Star Game through hard work, it feels like a slap in the face for fans to overlook the season he is putting together.
Taking away a player’s dream of starting in the All-Star Game because fans refuse to notice his performance on the field shows how flawed the system has become.
“I work really hard to be where I'm at right now, and being in the All-Star Game, it's just a dream,” Lopez said.
In a game meant to honor the best first-half performers, the All-Star starter vote too often rewards popularity. If the goal for the game is to showcase baseball’s best players this season, the numbers suggest it’s time to rethink whether the fans should still get a say.
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