A's Jacob Wilson Advances in All-Star Voting
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A's rookie shortstop Jacob Wilson has come through in the clutch numerous times this season, and on Thursday the fans came through for him. WIlson has now made it one step closer to being a starter in the upcoming All Star Game in Atlanta next month.
While Wilson earning the recognition after an incredible first half isn't terribly surprising, what is a little surprising is that he completely beat out Royals star Bobby Witt Jr. in the first round of voting.
Wilson finished Phase 1 with 1,801,528 votes, well ahead of Witt's 1,306,825, and both will be moving on to Phase 2 of the vote. Two factors that make this extra impressive are that Witt finished second to New York Yankees star Aaron Judge in the AL MVP race last season, so he should have gained a good bit of notoriety from that.
The second reason is that the A's have not had a fan-elected starter in the All-Star Game since third baseman Josh Donaldson in 2014.
Heading into the weekend series in the Bronx, Wilson is batting .345 with a .387 OBP, nine home runs, 40 RBI, and an .871 OPS. He is second to just Judge in average and total hits, while leading the rookie leaderboards in a slew of categories. Heck, even when you include the rookies with as few as three at-bats among the leaders, Wilson still ranks No. 4 in average while racking up 304 ABs.
Among all players, Jacob Wilson's 149 wRC+ (100 is league average) on the year ranks him as the No. 14 hitter in all of baseball, while his 3.2 fWAR moves him up a spot to No. 13. In the interest of transparency, Witt's 121 wRC+ has him tied for No. 57 in MLB, but because he's such a special defender at a premium position, he has 3.8 wins above replacement, which ranks him No. 6.
The argument for Wilson, even with those stats, is that the All Star Game is a place to showcase the best players in baseball. Both guys are extremely talented at what they do, but Witt's defensive ability may be more for the "inside baseball" crowd, while Wilson's bat-to-ball skills could catch the eyes of pretty much anyone. And you know he'll make contact, no matter who is on the mound for the NL.
His 6.8% strikeout rate ranks him second in the game behind just Luis Arraez (1.9%), while he's also been able to add some walks to his tally as the season has gone on. He went 87 plate appearances without drawing a walk to begin the season, but still has a walk rate of 5.6%. While the league average is roughly three percent higher, not everyone can do what Wilson does with a bat, either.
Phase 2 of the voting will begin on Monday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) and will run until Wednesday, July 2. Fans can vote once per day, with the voting limitation resetting at midnight ET each day. To vote for Wilson, you can go here, starting on Monday.
One last wrinkle to the voting process that is interesting is that both Wilson's A's and Witt's Royals will be on the road on June 30, so neither franchise will be able to promote their guy with the home crowd. That said, the A's will be playing in New York over the weekend, so a big series from him could get people flooding the ballot box on Monday.
Jason has been covering the A’s at various sites for over a decade, and was the original host of the Locked on A’s podcast. He also covers the Stanford Cardinal as they attempt to rebuild numerous programs to prominence.
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