While the American League All-Star voting is mired in Royal controversy, the National League continues to prepare for this year’s Midsummer Classic, slated for July 14 at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park, in a standard fashion.
Washington Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper continues to dwarf all vote-getters in the latest NL ballot returns, which MLB announced tuesday. Harper’s 6,059,827 votes are 1.6 million more than any other player.
Those numbers may seem a bit strange given that three Kansas City Royals alone have more than six million votes, but it’s become increasingly clear the NL side will be secondary to the ongoing battle AL between fanbases. Players from five different teams would start if voting ended Tuesday, with no club having more than the St. Louis Cardinals’ three representatives.
Contrast that with the American League, which currently boasts eight Royals in its projected starting lineup. The influx of votes from the Kansas City area has left MLB with a bit of a crisis on its hands, with a number of Royals slated to start over far more deserving candidates.
“I don’t think this voting thing is a bad thing at all,” Royals pitcher Jeremy Guthrie said, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today. “Like the old adage, if you don’t like it, player better [sic]. And if you don’t like it, vote more.”
That could be a problem against a stacked NL lineup that looks like an extreme mismatch on paper. None of the players on the NL roster are outliers, with the possible exception of San Francisco Giants outfielder Nori Aoki. Aoki is just ahead of the Miami Marlins’ Giancarlo Stanton and the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Andrew McCutchen in the voting.
He also played for the Royals last year during their run to Game 7 of the World Series.
Stanton is within about 70,000 votes, and McCutchen is roughly 85,000 behind, so it’s possible the whole NL roster course-corrects by the time voting ends July 2. Either way, the 2015 All-Star Game is shaping up to be one of the most lopsided affairs in big league history.
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