Why does All-Star balloting begin before the first month of baseball is over? The All-Star Game is not until the third week of July, so what reason is there to let fans vote when the only stats they can see represent well under a third of the season’s pre-All-Star-break half? This practice not only helps popular but undeserving players get elected, it also leads to important inaccuracies.
As I mentioned in my last post, Carlos Guillen and Miguel Cabrera switched positions before the first month of the season ended, but the ballot lists Guillen as a first baseman and Cabrera as a third baseman. If one of them ends up being elected to start for the American League, he will be forced to play a position that he will not have played in nearly three months. Another Tigers player – Jacque Jones, who was just designated for assignment – is one of Detroit’s three outfielders listed on the ballot. This issue probably won’t cause a problem since Jones has no chance of getting elected, but it still keeps whoever replaces Jones in the starting lineup (thus far Brandon Inge and rookie Matt Joyce) from being listed on the ballot and unless he catches the eye of Terry Francona, the AL’s manager this year, the odds that he will have any chance of making the team are slim to nil.
