OT-MLB All Star Voting

Submitted by IB6UB9 on

The latest updated voting totals in the American League, released Monday, have eight players from the Kansas City Royals in line to start the July 14 game in Cincinnati.

Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday it's too early to be worried about results.

WRONG!

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/13092427/rob-manfred-mlb-commissioner-open-change-all-star-game-fan-voting-proves-flawed

Having moved to KC from Chicago now 20 years ago MLB and fans will see at least 8 and possibly 9 Royals start and Royals Manger Ned Yost plans to start all of them just as the voting dictates.

The effort in KC started long ago and is grass roots.  My 7th grade Daughter who has zero interest in the MLB asks me during her school year how she can vote for all star players online and this was the first indication I can recall that somehow kids in school were being rallied to create multiple accounts and vote from 35 times a day.

Besides Royals starters there has been a push to get former Royals now in the National league to start opposite of current Royals in the American league.  Royals fans will tell you that the team sucked for a long time and they are simply showing their excitement in a flawed system.

This will not correct itself.  If anything it might get worse as the effort in Kansas City is very well organized and other fans simply cancel out their own votes.  You might very well see 9 Royals starters and a number of former Royals starting for the National League.

Blue-Chip

June 17th, 2015 at 11:02 AM ^

This is what you get for letting the fans vote. It's been a bad idea all along in my opinion. It compounds the mistake when they have the World Series home field in the picture as well.

OldDad67

June 17th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^

so I say more power to them. Harbaugh took advantage of the satellite camp loophole and we all praised him. The Kansas City Royals fan took advantage of the loophole in the voting system. I think it's hilarious. Let's hear all the other teams moan and groan.

coldnjl

June 17th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^

I want EVERY starting position to be a Royal. I want the All Star idea dramatically altered in MLB. We let the fans vote for the starters, yet they are playing for home field advantage. All dumb.

bklein09

June 17th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^

Does anybody really care about this? Really? It's the all star game. And pretty much everyone gets in at some point. Sure the rules should be changed for next year, but I actually think it would be pretty funny to see all the starters be Royals.




Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

BlueCube

June 17th, 2015 at 11:07 AM ^

I think more people will vote KC to mess with the system and obviously it benefits the national league to vote all KC. I don't think this will correct.

I'd laugh at MLB for creating this but I feel sorry for the deserving stars like Miggy who deserve to start and the player who doesn't make the team because Infante and others take their spot.

DrMantisToboggan

June 17th, 2015 at 11:16 AM ^

Maybe it will take a really crappy year to get some ASG reform? If the Royals end up winning say at least 6 of the starting 9 (when they deserve maybe 2) I hope the AL gets blown out and it forces the league to look at changing the system.

The manager of the team with the best record 2 weeks before the game should set the lineups, that way the person choosing actually has a vested interest in choosing the best players. Should there be a fan component? Maybe. Probably not but the fans will make a stink if they can't vote anymore. There could be possible requirements such as leaders in HR, RBI, K, W, BA and SB all have to be included on the roster.

Whatever the reform is, I think most would agree that the game needs to change in some way.

Doc Brown

June 17th, 2015 at 11:17 AM ^

Sorry but this smells like a hacker. The last time I saw a vote go this out of control was the last ncaa cover vote. In that case we were trying to outhack Texas A&M for the cover.




Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

JBE

June 17th, 2015 at 11:18 AM ^

This is the stupidest shit ever. It counts for home field in the WS, so Royals fans are hurting their chances if they get there again.Hopefully it'll be like '57 and the commish will step in. And then hopefully the whole system is reevaluated.

lilpenny1316

June 17th, 2015 at 11:22 AM ^

He can swap out Infante and any other non-deserving players in the best interest of the game.  It's been done before and can be done now.  Then he can apologize for making a mockery of the ASG.  

If they want the ASG to count, then play it after the regular season and stock the rosters only with players in the postseason.  Let the teams directly affected decide home field.  

WMUgoblue

June 17th, 2015 at 11:23 AM ^

I'm gonna laugh when a small market team like the Royals has to pay the light hitting Omar Infante a bonus for making the All-Star team. In the end it's probably good all these Royals get in so the voting gets some major tweaks going forward.

Zarniwoop

June 17th, 2015 at 11:48 AM ^

Fan vote should have been stripped decades ago.

Since the all-star game "counts" now, managers and/or players should vote on representation.

Yes, there would still be homerism, but it likely wouldn't be as stupid as the all-star game has become.

50shadesofHARBAUGH

June 17th, 2015 at 12:16 PM ^

who would you rather have coming off the bench with runners on and chance to win the game...Hosmer or Miggy? Miggy should start, but having Miggy play later in the game is almost better...

bronxblue

June 17th, 2015 at 12:20 PM ^

This is the folly of fan voting for stuff like AS games that have a real effect on the WS.  It's like when Yao Ming kept getting voted as the starting center despite barely being able to move, but if the winner of the NBA all star game got home court for the finals.

It's dumb, but if the KC fans have decided they want to see Omar Infante fart his way through 2 at-bats and possibly cost themselves home field if they make it to the WS again this year, then by all means let them.  

BigHouseBoyz

June 17th, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^

How ironic if the Royals play the Cards and StL has homefield advantage because of this "grass roots effort"  Royals were gifted the Series in 1985 after the blown call by Denkinger and now they might just return the favor.

Although, I still tell Cards fans that if they won Game 7 nobody would remember Denkinger's call.  Gets under their skin!!

chatster

June 17th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ^

Fans’ vote counts for a quarter; vote from major league players, managers and coaches counts for a quarter; votes from the professional broadcasters and writers who regularly cover the sport and the teams counts for a quarter;  and the Bob Costas/Ken Burns combined vote counts for a quarter.
 
Top vote getter in each league from each of the voting sectors gets 15 points, and then the next 14 vote getters receive from 14 points to one points.  Total points are added. Top vote getters are the starters.
 
Let’s say that the 2015 fans’ vote gives Eric Hosmer of the Royals the most votes to start at first base for the AL. The next five vote getters in the fans’ vote are the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera, the Angels’ Albert Pujols, the Yankees’ Mark Teixeira, the Rangers’ Prince Fielder and Chicago’s Jose Abreu.  The rest of the voting sectors list Cabrera, Pujols, Teixeira, Fielder and Abreu ahead of Hosmer.
 
Hosmer finishes with 15 points from the fans and 10 points from each of the other three voting sectors. He gets a total of 45 points. Cabrera gets 14 points from the fans and 15 points from each of the other three voting sectors, for a total of 59 points. He’s the AL starter at first base.  Abreu, who finished sixth in the fans’ vote (10 points) and fifth among the vote getters in each of the other voting sectors (total of 33 points) gets a total of 43, only two behind Hosmer, despite never finishing higher than fifth in the votes from any sector.
________________________
 
* I was alive, and a major league baseball fan in 1957 when the controversy about Cincinnati fans' voting for the All-Star starters occurred. I remember when I used to look forward to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game and would watch the broadcast from beginning to end. I liked it when starters might play the entire game and when pitchers would throw three innings or more.
 
In that 1957 game, seven players played the entire game (Nellie Fox, Al Kaline, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra for the AL; Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Willie Mays for the NL) and the Braves' Lew Burdette pitched four innings. LINK TO THE 1957 GAME BOX SCORE
 
It's still the only All-Star game among the major sports in which players compete like they do during regular season games; but I can't recall the last time I took the time to watch the whole game. This year, even if Deandre Yedlin of the USMNT won't be playing for Tottenham Hotspurs FC, I might have more interest in watching the MLS All Stars play Tottenham on July 29 than I'll have in watching the MLB All-Star Game.

JamieH

June 17th, 2015 at 1:34 PM ^

The day they went to internet voting and the only check was an email address (which are free and unlimited) this was bound to happen.  It was just a matter of time before some city organized a campaign like this.  Any IT person with half a brain saw this coming, but Bud Selig (who instituted all of this) doesn't have half a brain. 



The good news is that it is such a farce that changes will pretty much have to be taken.  And because Selig is gone they have the chance to not be idiotic changes. 



In the meantime, the commissioner should probably step in and completely invalidate the fan vote this year and have the players elect the all-star team.