The Philadelphia Phillies and Trea Turner are facing a major gripe with the star shortstop being held off the National League All-Star roster. After fan voting completed on Thursday, Turner wasn't even given the respect to be a finalist on the ballot.
The Phillies won't be sending eight players to the Midsummer Classic like last year because few Phillies players have really deserved All-Star designation. The same can't be said about Turner. He's been a shining light for this offense and has looked like the Turner of old in an aging lineup, but most importantly, he deserves to be representing the Phillies in the All-Star Game. The recent fan balloting appears to feel differently, which feels like a crime against the position and the sport.
Trea Turner not being the NL All-Star starter at shortstop is just wrong
It's a major flaw for the voting and what real value means. The two names that moved on to Phase 2 of the voting were the New York Mets' Francisco Lindor and the Los Angeles Dodgers' Mookie Betts. Fan voting must have been on default since week one of voting because both Lindor and Betts are currently batting .258 and .249, respectively. Turner is batting .295 and is second among NL shortstops in steals with 20, that's more than Betts and Lindor have combined (19). Turner is also the National League hit leader with 101.
If batting average isn't enough, Turner also leads both finalists in OPS, a more all-encompassing statistic. He's rocking an .800 OPS, compared to Lindor's .775 and Betts' .707. During the month of June, Turner heated up to an .843 OPS, the third-highest OPS among NL shortstops during that span. Lindor and Betts had .628 and .633, respectively. Turner has again proven how versatile he is as a player, per Noah Levick of NBC Sports Philadelphia.
What's even more shocking is that Turner leads all NL shortstops with a 3.6 fWAR, per FanGraphs. How far do you have to fall to get to Lindor and Betts? You have to go to a 3.0 for Lindor and 1.8 for Betts. The only other player that remains close to Turner in most of these categories is actually Elly De La Cruz, who also wasn't apparently popular enough to make the ballot.
The All-Star Game can be a popularity contest, which fans can gravitate towards. The problem comes up when you have a player like Turner playing out of his mind, but doesn't even get a second look. Turner completely re-tooled himself before heading into this season to be more effective, and it shows. Turner still has a chance to get in as an alternate, but if we're being serious about who's deserving, Turner deserves to be well ahead of both Lindor and Betts when all is said and done.