An Actually Serious Look at the All-Star Ballot

Apparently there’s some sort of “issue” with “choking the ballot box with useless votes and ruining everything,” so this year, the powers-that-be at the Baseball Bloggers Alliance have requested that we come up with All-Star votes that aren’t seeping with giggling homerism.

A lot of people think that just because I chant “Chooooooooooooch” for the entire time it takes me to fill out an All-Star ballot that I’m voting for just the Phillies.  But that’s just how I fill out forms in general.  Yet, to appease the nonbelievers, I submit to the BBA overlords the following list.

National League

1B Joey Votto

Its so funny that Joey keeps not getting voted onto the All-Star team despite his clear All-Staritude.  Ryan Howard has not been having an All-Star season, but boy, do people ever recognize his name.  So as much fun as it is to see Ryan make the roster perennially, it’s Joey’s time.

2B Richie Weeks

There’s always the risk of Weeks shattering into a cloud of dust and blowing away in the wind, but he’s also the NL leader in hits.  I don’t even have to look up what ‘hits’ are, as I often do with some of the more accurate, complicated stats.

SS Starlin Castro

Even when I’m removing homerism from my votes, I still can’t vote for Mets players.  But that’s not homerism, is it?  No.  It’s open hostility.  It’s totally different.  Besides, its not like Starlin Castro is a bad baseball player.  Its not like punching out a hole next to Raul Ibanez’s name while everyone sitting around me in a stadium looks on in disgust.

3B Placido Polanco

Hooray, I don’t have to make up a lie about a Phillies player to have a reason to vote for them!  Thank god for Polly.  Apparently all he does is… uh.  Something.  I forget what it is, but it’s pretty good.

LF Ryan Braun

Ryan already made the All-Star team for “baseball players my female friends think are cute,” so the baseball All-Star team was clearly within his grasp.

CF Jay Bruce

God, just… blow it out your ass, Jay Bruce, you mind-ripping Phillie-killer.  Though I guess as long as Wilson Valdez isn’t pitching in Phoenix this year Bruce should be able to contribute for the NL.

IMPORTANT NEWS UPDATE:  Wilson Valdez not voted to NL All-Star team as pitcher despite joke indicating otherwise.

RF Lance Berkman

Raul Ibanez rode the “Old Guy Makes Good” ticket all the way to the 2009 ASG, and America loves an old person who goes out and proves their worth.  So of course I will vote for Lance Berkman, whose been great to watch, after spending 2010 with the Yankees trying to murder Alex Gonzalez.  Actually, can I vote for him twice?  On the same ballot, I mean.

C Yadier Molina

I can’t mention Chooch being an All-Star without getting laughed/cursed out of a room, and I’m sick of seeing Brian McCann in there, so I’m cool with Molina.  Honestly, yesterday on the radio they were talking about anything Chooch does at the plate being extra, given his sheer expertise of calling a game with the staff that he handles.  They even theorized the institution of a designated hitter for the catcher, or something.  I don’t know I was mostly asleep.  I’m kind of asleep right now, actually.

P Cole Hamels

How many Xfinity commercials does a guy have to make before he’s appreciated as an ace in his time?

American League

1B Adrian Gonzalez

What sucks is now the Red Sox are the Red Sox everyone was kind of afraid of them being.  That’s why we all liked their terrible start, because it was the opposite of the things we saw in our night terrors.  Now they’re great and Adrian Gonzalez is a big part of that, and its just like “Shut up, Adrian Gonzalez!”  But he won’t shut up.

2B Howie Kendrick

I actually don’t know who this person is.

SS Asdrubal Cabrera

I like to say “Asdrubal.”  Sadly, as the Citizens Bank Park employees informed me, “Sir, you do not have to verbally announce your picks to the ballot box.  Please.”

3B Adrian Beltre

I guess he has an advantage because even if he doesn’t finish first in the balloting, Ron Washington will just put him on the team.  Not that he doesn’t deserve to be there, but not everybody gets a contingency plan for success.  Plus, he’s an advocate for children’s smiles.  If that doesn’t put him over the edge, then you are an inhumane monster.

LF Jose Bautistia

Some guys just make All-Star voting a joke.  If we can’t screaming debates over who should be voted in, what the hell is the point?  Guys like Jose Bautista are ruining the ASG with their completely dominant and unfairly awesome first half performances.  Although now he’s technically a third baseman so who knows what the hell’s going on.

CF Jacoby Ellsbury

Is he the Carl Crawford that isn’t there?  In Carl’s defense, he’s got his priorities.  But Jacoby has been there to pick up the slack; to the point where he can strike out three times and get sniped stealing and Terry Francona won’t even pull him aside to scream at him.

RF Matt Joyce

Fangraphs has pointed out that Matt Joyce is Captain of the Royal Screwjob when it comes to All-Star votes.  Of course, I’d say that about anyone who got less votes than Jeff Francoeur, regardless of their skill.  But Joyce is especially failed by voters due to his consistent, better-than-solid numbers and yet total inability to be voted onto anything.

Come on, just… do it.

C Matt Wieters

In the Orioles’ opening series against the Rays, B.J. Upton tried to steal third and Wieters reared back and fired a shot that had Upton so nailed he had to take a second to think about life before he got off the dirt.  When the cameras cut back to Wieters, he was walking out to the pitchers mound, glaring down at third base, his mask jostled so that it only covered half of his face.  He looked like battle-damaged Darth Vader.

It was awesome.

DH David Ortiz

As I expressed to Derek Stykalo of BoSox Injection earlier today, it is complete asshattery that the Red Sox can have Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz in their lineup, and then be faced with the “problem” of trying to fit them both in during an NL series when the pitcher bats.  Fortunately, Terry Francona has a bunch of games a year where his poor little brain isn’t forced to make decisions like that.  The ASG is one of those games.

P David Price

He’s pretty good right.