2007 AL All-Star votes: you probably know the people already
| 12
|
by user Wizardman
I understand that it's a few days still until we see which players won out in the All-Star voting. However, I'm a bit surprised at some of the leaders thus far. It's showing that how good a player is doing doesn't mean quite as much when it comes to balloting.
At first base, David Ortiz will clearly win this one with over 1.4M votes. With a .326 average and 13 home runs, his power seems down but his average is way up, so he's probably deserving of the spot. Justin Morneau's 20 HR gives him the clear reserve job as well. Casey, Giambi, and Hafner are all struggling this season, so this one is fine.
I couldn't figure out why Robinson Cano had the early lead when Placido Polanco's .342 batting average and perfect fielding percentage gives him the clear nod here. I didn't know who Dustin Pedroia was at all until I looked just now, but I may very well put him over Cano as the reserve. He's looking to win the Rookie of the Year award. Cano probably just got the Yankee boost, I guess, like Giambi.
Is Derek Jeter deserving of not so much the All-Star spot, but a 1 million vote gap? He's played well enough to deserve the starting job yes, and Guillen deserves the #2 spot. Orlando Cabrera could be an under the radar guy to watch out for, however. The votes should be closer between those three. What surprises me in this balloting is Julio Lugo 4th. He is playing poorly this season and would struggle to make my top half. I'd put Jhonny Peralta in the game before Lugo.
Oh boy, third base. A-Rod deserves the starter spot, no question. Lowell with the starting spot is acceptable as well, since third is quite weak this year.
Now the two I really want to talk about. First catcher. While I like Pudge and he has been reliable, he is certainly not the #1 catcher. Actually, the AL catcher position is so loaded this year that I don't even know if he deserves a spot at all. Goes to show you that people are picking by name recognition, not talent. Jorge Posada, Joe Mauer, and Victor Martinez are all playing better then Ivan Rodriguez. My pick would actually be Posada starting, Martinez backing up, and Mauer as a potential bubble candidate to think over. Varitek's good, and so's Pudge, but they're not deserving this year.
The outfield is kinda scary this year. Vlad is deserving of the starter spot, of course. Ichiro's deserving of the center field spot. Unfortunately for Magglio, he's probably even better than Vlad this year, but I don't know where you squeeze those two right fielders in together. Those three should be starting, but who to put in left since we can't? Manny got lucky i think, left field's rather weak so he's got that spot no problem. As for backups, I have Sizemore over Hunter in CF, simply by what I've seen. After that it's a slew of yanks and sox on the ballot, I would just skip them all and put in Crawford personally.
But here's the deal though, look at the names. Ortiz, Jeter, A-Rod, Ramirez, Guerrero, Ichiro, Rodriguez, all household names. No one else had a chance to win a starting position there, which is disappointing. Sure many of them deserved it, but a couple got through that probably weren't quite AS caliber this year. My first thought was a Yankee boost, but look at the one that I didn't care for. I wanted a Yankee in, and it happened to be one that isn't a well-known one even though he's paying extremely well.
