Opinion: In inaugural year, MLB's new All-Star Game voting system got it right
It would seem that the Major League Baseball's new All-Star Game voting system did what it was intended to do.
For the first time, fans voted in a "primary," with the top three finishers at each position – six for outfielders – moving on to the Starters Election.
During that 28-hour voting period from Wednesday into Thursday afternoon, fans got to take a closer look at the top candidates and did a pretty darn good job selecting the most worthy players.
The new system effectively neutralized the straight-ticket voting that has come to dominate the All-Star voting in years past. Successfully turning out the vote may get a bunch of players from your team into the finals, but all those votes went out the window when the fields were narrowed down.
The Braves were among the clubs to dominate the primary, landing a finalist at every position, but weren't quite able to carry that momentum into the Starters Election, ultimately ending up with two starters in first baseman Freddie Freeman and outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr.
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In fact, Atlanta's Ozzie Albies led NL second basemen with 2.2 million votes in the first round, but wound up losing out in the final voting period to Arizona's Ketel Marte, who had advanced to next round with only 1.1 million votes in the primary.
Marte, batting .316 with 20 home runs and 51 RBI through Wednesday, was truly the most deserving candidate but in the past probably have been overwhelmed by straight-ticket voting.
To be fair, there weren't many mistakes among the finalists in the first place. Astros second baseman Jose Altuve and Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge were probably the only two players who had no business advancing to the next round.
Once they were in the finals, it wouldn't have been surprising to see either of them get voted in on popularity alone. Judge ended up finishing less than 1% out of a starting spot, but credit to the fans for resisting the urge to
The Yankees had a finalist at every position, and ended up with two starters – DJ LeMahieu at second base and catcher Gary Sanchez – both of whom deserved the honor.
Houston ended up with three starters, the most of any team, but it's tough to argue with the selections of Alex Bregman (22 HR, 52 RBI), George Springer (18 HR, 44 RBI in 50 games) or Michael Brantley (.317 average).
Perhaps the best aspect of the new system is that it allowed for the finalists to state their case in the days leading up to the election.
LeMahieu, who placed third in primary voting, went 12-for-18 with three homers and six RBI in the five games between the announcement of the finalists and the reveal of the starters. Tommy La Stella of the Angels, who led AL second basemen in the primary, hit .231 in that same stretch and wound up finishing third behind LeMahieu and Altuve.
While the league could probably stand to expand the final voting window to 48 hours, the inaugural year with the Starters Election has to be considered an all-out success.