OT-MLB All Star Voting
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!
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.
as a tigers fan, i say good. let their entire starting roster spend its only week off at this media blitz. it will hurt them in the long run.
I told Royals fans that this might be a bad idea. The AL needs the best players out there to secure home field for the World Series.
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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.
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.
Back to paper ballots with hanging chads
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.
Can't wait to see our old buddy Omar Infante start the all star game with his .205 avg....
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Infante may not even be on their MLB roster by the all-star game. They are openly searching for his replacement. Still good in the field but he has lost a step and is not hitting like he once did.
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.
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It's for home field advantage in the WS...
Fans should not dictate this. The players should.
Oh ya, home field advantage. Forgot about that. Well my team is in the NL so I'm not too worried.
Having the ASG determine home field is the rule that really needs to be changed.
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Baseball is actually the ONLY sport for which the ASG matters. So yes, people care a great deal if a very mediocre AL team is fielded against the NL all-stars.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1957_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Major_League_Baseball_All-Star_Game
The last time something like this happened, the commish threw out the voting results & didn't let fans vote again for 13 years.
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.
Actually, The Gong Show portrays exactly how this was marketed to the MLB brass and probably why they loved it so much:
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.
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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.
it would be interesting to see if Yost then pulled them all in the second inning.
This is the answer. At the end of a meaningful all-star game (homefield advantage) the best players in the AL will be on the field instead of on the bench watching the back-ups as is usually the case.
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.
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.
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.
How about a vote only amongst the managers of the clubs with the 8 best records, 12 days before the game. Since your 5 playoffs teams are probably in this group, the managers have a vested interest to not be homers since their potential home field is at stake.
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...
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.
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!!
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.