Zero SF Giants advance to second phase of All-Star voting
The SF Giants have gone 15-5 in the month of June, scoring nearly six runs per game and going on a ten-game win streak. To paraphrase the great Shania Twain, that doesn't impress All-Star voters much.
Major League Baseball announced the All-Star Ballot finalists on Thursday, and there is not a single Giants player in the group. In fact, there's not a single former SF Giant on the final ballot, because Shohei Ohtani was the American League's highest vote-getter. That means the second-place finisher at designated hitter, former Giants captain Brandon Belt, will not advance to the final vote.
For those of you unfamiliar with baseball's All-Star voting procedures, there's now two rounds of voting. The top two vote-getters at each position in the first round of voting, which runs for 23 days, advance to the final. Fans can vote up to five times a day during that period. Then, from Monday, June 26 to Thursday, June 29, fans can vote once in a 24-hour period for one of the two finalists.
Does that sound unnecessarily complicated? Of course, but that's what baseball is like in the Rob Manfred era. Elaborate rule changes, somehow making everything overly structured and yet chaotic, all which would baffle a baseball fan from any time before 2019.
"Yeah, there's a ghost runner on second in extra innings, there's a big clock for pitches, and you can't throw over to first anymore. No, you're not hallucinating, the bases really are bigger. By the way, order some N95 masks. Trust me."
The Giants' top finisher was J.D. Davis, who finished fourth among third basemen. Davis leads the Giants with 41 RBIs, slashing .282/.363/.471 and hitting ten home runs. He also leads all NL third basemen in batting average and on-base percentage. Davis has been especially good away from Oracle Park, where he's slugging .561 with seven of his home runs.
LaMonte Wade Junior's tremendous year was ignored by All-Star voters, who had him eighth among first basemen. Wade's .415 OBP is third in all of baseball. He's also delivered nine home runs and a .463 slugging percentage, with baseball's third-highest walk rate.
But walks aren't sexy to All-Star voters. Nor is playing for teams other than the Atlanta Braves, who have finalists at every position except for DH, as well as the league's top vote-getter, Ronald Acuña Jr.
The biggest snub might have been second baseman Thairo Estrada, who may be underrated because so much of his value is in his baserunning and defense. He's slashing .282/.335/.459, and he has 17 stolen bases. That's more than any Giant has had in a season in the past decade, apart from Eduardo Nunez's 18 swipes in 2017. He's only been caught three times for a stellar 85% stolen base rate.
On defense, he has seven defensive runs saved, second among second basemen and 12th in all of baseball. His positional versatility might even hurt him, since he's a strong enough defender that he's started 15 games at shortstop and two in left field.
All of the Giants have a chance to make the team when reserves are selected, through a combination of votes from players and, you guessed it, the commissioner's office. They'll choose one backup at each position, regardless of the fan vote, along with five starting pitchers and three relievers.
So perhaps Giants fans let down their players and didn't stuff the ballot box. But we choose to believe that the Braves fans perverted the process. After all, without all the Braves votes, one of the deserving Giants could have finished as high as, well, third.
At this point, the best way Giants fans can help their favorite plays make the Midsummer Classic is to write to Rob Manfred, identify yourself as a Giants fan, and tell him you think it's really cool how he's crapping on A's fans after stealing their team. That's probably the best way to get on his good side, besides giving a billionaire hundreds of millions in public money.
After all, that's what Cobb County did for the Braves!
