Twelve games in, All Star balloting opens

April 20, 2010 by Benjamin Kabak 58 Comments

It never fails to amaze me that Major League Baseball’s All Star Game counts for something. Voting is but a popularity contest, and a glorified exhibition game determines home field advantage in the World Series. I shouldn’t complain because the AL has a dominant lock on the Mid-Summer Classic these days, but it rankles me nonetheless. To that end, it seems absurd that, on April 20, nine games into the season, we can now vote for the 2010 All Star team. Perhaps we should Scott Podsednik to the Small Sample Size All Star team for hitting .457 over 46 ABs or Vernon Wells for bashing six dingers in the early goings, but I don’t want either of them anywhere near the AL All Star team come mid-July.

Tom Zig

I can’t wait for next year when the All-star ballot opens up before Spring Training.

How do they even know who to put on the All-star ballot? A-rod and Tex haven’t even started playing to the best of their abilities. Kevin Youkilis and Victor Martinez are in a slump too. Please don’t tell me that Scotty Pod is on the ballot.
- Dirty Pena
  
  Isn’t every (Opening Day) starter on the ballot?
http://twitter.com/JoeRo23 The Honorable Congressman Mondesi

We’ve had the conversation about whether the ASG should determine home-field advantage before, and I have to say… I don’t think I have a problem with it. Someone – I think it was Moshe, but it was a long time ago and I’m unsure – pointed out, pretty convincingly I think, that granting home-field advantage to the league that wins the ASG is really no more or less arbitrary than a coin-flip or alternating years. If it attracts some more viewers and adds some interest for some people, I really don’t think I have a problem with it.
- poster
  
  You know what would be less arbitrary? Giving it to the team with the best record.
  
  Yeah there are differences in the leagues and whatnot but NL teams have represented well in the WS and anyway at least you have a 162 game sample size to work with. I mean, if Philly wins 102 games and Minnesota wins 85 and Minny makes it to the WS why should Minny get home field advantage based on one game, where the players chosen are basically only picked because of popularity?
  - http://www.thematrix101.com/ Thomas A. Anderson
    
    MLB has cited logistcal reason for not giving it to the team with the best regular season record. Good reasons? Not really. Basically saying that it’s not that easy to plan and account for the sheer number of people in the traveling road show that is the world series with less than a month’s notice.
    
    Whatever.
    
    The fairest way to do this if best regular season record is not it, is to give home field advantage to the league that wins the most interleague games in a season home field advantage.
    
    That is a large enough sample size, and it is determined by an activity that has everyone from both leagues participating in something that is interleague play related, which the World Series is.
    
    But that will never fly cause it make much too much sense.
    - http://www.thematrix101.com/ Thomas A. Anderson
      
      And I swear I totally didn’t see Rebecca’s comment below this. Commentary FAIL of the highest order on my part.
      - poster
        
        Rebecca and you are right. If the team with the best record can’t be chosen for logistical reasons, then choose the league with the best interleague record.
    - http://www.soxandpinstripes.net JGS
      
      Less than a month’s notice? Last time there was a game 7 in the Championship Series (2008), the World Series started just three days later. MLB’s complaint there is legit.
      
      I like the interleague record idea though
      - poster
        
        Right, that’s something I hadn’t considered. Still, anything but a one game sample size where the players on the team are chosen by the same fans who vote players that aren’t rookies ROY is fine by me. At least it’s a large sample where every team in each league contributes.
      - Dirty Pena
        
        What about in the NBA where the team with the best record is home?
        
        http://www.soxandpinstripes.net JGS
        
        or the CS round for that matter. As it currently stands, there is potential to have to change tickets at the last minute for that already
  - sleepykarl
    
    Best record should help with ratings in a sense, as instead of seeing the SWB Yankees close the season out with the division clinched, there might be something to play for.
  - Bob Stone
    
    AMEN. I totally agree.
- http://theyankeeu.com Moshe Mandel
  
  Yeah, that was me.
  - poster
    
    BTW, does one of your guys have an article published in the Yankees’ (pretty good, BTW) preseason preview book from Maplewood Press? Because it said that the author of one of the articles worked for TYU.
    - http://theyankeeu.com Moshe Mandel
      
      I’d love to answer that, but its OT. Check the OT thread, Ill respond there.
      - poster
        
        Gotcha.
http://www.puristbleedspinstripes.com Rebecca-Optimist Prime (Optimovelist Primus)

Personally, I think home field advantage should be decided by the total result of inter-league play.

Not like the AL doesn’t dominate that, either.
- vin
  
  If I were to rank the “who should get homefield advantage” possibilities:
  
  1) The team with the better record. (it works in the NBA and NHL)
  2) The league with the better interleague record.
  3) Alternate AL and NL each year. (like the old days)
  4) The team with the better interleague record. (might make those games a bit more interesting)
  –substantial gap–
  5) Winner of the All-Star game.
  6) Draw Straws/Flip a coin.
  7) Have the fans vote (trying to keep it on topic).
- Bob Stone
  
  That’s better than the current system, but I still like best record as the determinant despite its obvious flaws.
Johan Iz My Brohan

David Eckstein has yet to strike out in 43 ABs, he is also a product of the imperial Red Sox farm system. I say we vote him in to the All-Star game, and then after that, vote him in unanimously to the HOF.
- bexarama
  
  he also hit a walk-off home run last night
  - CS Yankee
    
    Good article at Fansgraph on that likehood…
    
    31 out of 10,000
    
    That bat, that pitcher, that park
    
    He should of bought a lottery tix that night as well
http://stateofmlb.blogspot.com Hangoverologist

I’ve already voted. I voted Tex, Ribbie, Jeter, and Granderson as the Yankee representatives
- Tom Zig
  
  No A-Rod? What’d he do to you? Kick your dog?
  - king of fruitless hypotheticals
    
    um hello?! Nick Johnson OBP KING?
    
    did nobody tell you–this time…IT COUNTS.
    - poster
      
      He’s a designated HITTER who doesn’t HIT. That’s like calling runs that are walked in runs BATTED in…oh, wait…
      
      Sincerely,
      
      Dalelama
      - bexarama
        
        LOL…….. true warrior……….
  - Dirty Pena
    
    Probably voted like me. For Kouzmanoff.
    - Ansky
      
      I wrote in Casey Kelly.
      - bexarama
        
        holy crap I just did that too!
      - vin
        
        Isn’t he throwing out the first pitch? And get driven around in a golf cart ALA Ted Williams in ’99?
  - Hangoverologist
    
    Crap, I forgot to mention him.
bexarama

As I said on the Open Thread, I’m torn between wanting all Yankees so everyone that’s not a Yankee fan cries about it and I can drink their delicious, delicious tears, or wanting no Yankees so the boys can get a nice long break.
- bexarama
  
  I just saw “R. Johnson SEA” as one of the catchers and got SO CONFUSED. Then I realized it’s probably not that R. Johnson.
- http://www.soxandpinstripes.net JGS
  
  Any Yankees there you want to be starters so they will be out of the game by the third inning
  - Dirty Pena
    
    Also, Girardi is the manager so I’m pretty sure he’s gonna take a Yankee or two.
Jason

I think the AL’s dominance should be (if the game was taken more serious) over. Besides the catcher and 3rd Base position, The NL wins out at all the other positions…
Hanley (and Tulo)Pujols, Utley and an OF of Braun, Kemp and Upton!
bexarama

I just voted for all of Houston’s players for the NL. Mwhaha.

#sabotage

(Yes, I realize some of them are actually pretty good.)
- CS Yankee
  
  When you say some, you mean 3 or 4 right?
  - Dirty Pena
    
    And when we’re talking about who comes remotely close to deserving to be an All Star, the answer is somewhere between -1 and 0.
poster

I voted an all Yankee infield and Grandy in the OF.
bexarama

remind me: do we get to vote for the starting pitchers? I know the managers choose most of the pitchers.
- Dirty Pena
  
  No, we do not.
- http://www.soxandpinstripes.net JGS
  
  we do not
Mike HC

I like the idea of giving homefield to the team with the best regular season record. If that is not enough time for some reason I can’t imagine right now, why not give home field to the league that won last years WS. Just another thought on how they could decide it.
- poster
  
  As we mentioned above, think of it this way: The ALCS ended in 2008 during game 7, three days before the WS. Not enough time.
  - http://www.soxandpinstripes.net JGS
    
    To which I reconsidered–how is that different from the CS round where you don’t know who has homefield until potentially right before it starts and no one seems to have a problem with that
    - poster
      
      True, but I think the WS is a bigger media event than the CS’s are, isn’t it?
      
      At any rate, my opinion is flexible. Best case scenario is that the team with the best record gets homefield. I’m not really sure if it’s an option or not though.
    - Bob Stone
      
      Excellent point.
  - Dirty Pena
    
    As was also mentioned above, they manage to do this in the NBA, as well as the day or two between LDS and LCS.
    - poster
      
      Well, that’s true.
      
      Maybe it could work then. As I said above, my opinion is pretty flexible. I just hate the ASG deciding home field idea.
      
      Still, I’m not really clear on all the economics and that crap so if it really is impossible the next best thing would definitely be to have the winner of interleague play get homefield. Winner of the ASG is in a VERY, VERY far distant tie for third, along with switching the home team each year and a coin flip. It really should decide nothing.
  - V
    
    Huh? The winner of the 7 game ALCS was the WS host. But no one knew WHICH of the two was going to win. How is that different from not knowing yet if the AL winner or NL winner would have best record?
    - vin
      
      It doesn’t make a lot of sense. I suppose it gives MLB the knowledge (once the LCS teams are determined) that the WS will begin in one of two cities.
      
      It’s pretty weak. Bud is just trying to cover up his All-Star game fiasco from 2002.
Poopy Pants

Punxsutawney Phil should choose.
- CS Yankee
  
  This!
  
  If he sees his shadow the NL would win (as that means more winter & sleep)…no shadow, the AL hosts as that means summer (the brighter league wins0.
  - bexarama
    
    NL baseball! We cry at the thought of Mariano Rivera!
http://twitter.com/j_sprouse2213 James

this is what i’ll say.

i would like to think that Baseball fans are smarter then the NBA fans and NFL fans in the sense of; they make more educated votes for the AS Game.

Of course whenever voting is involved you’ll get the bad apples (ex. Hamilton last year) but for the most part…the fans do a pretty good job of picking the starters.

moreover…let us not forget for one second that the managers pick the reserves and pitchers.

So to me this argument that, “the game shouldn’t count for anything because fans vote” is just an argument that takes away from the real reason the AS game shouldn’t determine home field.