Texas Rangers Lacking Vote In Latest Results for MLB All-Star Game

kWith less than two weeks left to vote for the 2015 MLB All-Star Game, the ballot has started to change in the most recent release of the results. After the cancellation of over 60 million votes due to improper voting. Bob Bowman, CEO of MLB Advanced Media, told Yahoo! Sports that “We don’t really trumpet it because if someone thinks they’re getting away with it, they’ll try to again.”

The Kansas City Royals still account for seven of the nine position leaders, although their leads have started to decrease. The voting leader is catcher Salvador Perez of the Kansas City Royals, with 10,199,151 votes, who is hitting .280/.291/.466 with 11 home runs and 30 runs batted in. In second place overall is first baseman Miguel Cabrera with 9,342,149 votes. Other than Cabrera, the only other non-Royals starter is Mike Trout who leads the outfield group by about 69,000 votes.

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The Texas Rangers have two players who have made the top five for their position. Prince Fielder came in third for the first baseman with 2,391,736 votes, nearly seven million votes behind leader Cabrera. Even if Fielder was in the Designated Hitter category, where he has played 57 of his 68 games, Fielder would be fourth in the rankings. Compared to other DHs, Fielder came into the day tied for the second best WAR with David Ortiz and 0.2 behind Jose Bautista. None of these three made the top five for DH on the ballot.

The other Rangers player to make the top five for his position was third baseman Adrian Beltre. While much of the focus in recent weeks at third base has been about Joey Gallo, Beltre is fifth in the rankings for third base and trails the leader Mike Moustakas by nearly 7.8 million votes. While Beltre will likely not catch Moustakas by next Thursday, him remaining in the top five shows the level of respect fans have for Beltre and his abilities to keep voting him in regardless of his playing time.

Much of the talk about the results has surrounded the dominance of the Royals in the starting lineup. Even with the removal of the millions of votes, the Royals are still fully in charge of the ballot. The team has the best record in the American League and the second best record in all of baseball, so it is easy to believe that many players should be good enough to be in the All-Star game. The argument that they need to win the game so they can have home field advantage in the World Series is a valid argument but this game and the World Series game are both for the fans. All fans have the same opportunity to vote for their teams and if there are more fans of Omar Infante than Jose Altuve, I find it hard to argue with that.

Be sure to CAST YOUR VOTE! and let’s continue to show our support for Fielder, Beltre, and the rest of the team!

Next: Should the Texas Rangers Consider Dillon Gee?

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