Cincinnati Reds’ Todd Frazier pushing for NL All-Star nod

When MLB released its latest results of the All-Star Game voting, I wasn’t surprised that David Wright of the New York Mets was the NL third base leader. It’s name recognition, at least for this year, as Wright hasn’t exactly been on his game.

I scanned the results once again and saw that there was a name not present in the top five that should be among those leaders, if not the overall leader. That would be Todd Frazier of the Cincinnati Reds.

Last night, Frazier came to bat in the top of the ninth to face Pittsburgh Pirates closer Jason Grilli. In his previous seven plate appearances against Grilli, Frazier was a cool 1-for-7 with three strikeouts. On this night, Frazier got the best of Grilli as Frazier sent a 94 mph offering some 442 feet to provide the Reds a 6-5 win.

I know. That’s not a reason fans should vote Frazier as the NL third baseman. And I know that a few of you are aware that I am a Reds fans. You want something, anything, to convince you I’m not being a homer. But here are some reasons why they should do so. Read on as this won’t take long.

For the season, Frazier owns a slashline of .276/.349/.524 with 16 home runs and 40 runs driven in. In some respects, this might look a little ordinary, especially the average on on-base percentage, but there’s far more.

Head to Fangraphs and check his offensive numbers against all other third basemen. Not just those in the National League, but all third basemen. He stacks up quite well.

– Frazier is second in fWAR (2.7) trailing only Josh Donaldson (3.3) of the Oakland A’s.
– Frazier’s 16 HR are second to, once again, Donaldson (17).
– His Fangraphs offensive rating of 15.7 is tops among all third basemen.
– Frazier also leads all third basemen in SLG% (.524) and wRC+ (140). The SLG ranks as 10th in the NL.
– His wOBA of .379 is second only to Luis Valbuena of the Chicago Cubs (.380).
– His OPS of .872 is tops among third basemen.
– And what might surprise you is that Frazier’s 7 stolen bases are also tops.
– On Baseball Reference, his oWAR of 2.6 is 10th overall in the NL, which also ranks tops among all NL 3Bers.

I know there are fans that don’t pay attention to some, if not all, of the sabermetric stats. Here’s your chance to take that slightest bit of that information and apply it.

At the current time, Todd Frazier is clearly having the best season among all NL third basemen. He should go to the All-Star Game, but we know that every season snubs for the ASG run amok. Do the NL team a favor and #VoteFrazier.