Could MLB have doctored All-Star Game final vote results?
If you are a conspiracy theorist, this might pique your interest. If you don’t buy into much talk of things that linger on the fringe between reality and suspicions, then fair enough. The fact still remains Major League Baseball has seen its fair share of scandals come to light through the game’s history. The latest one surrounds questions with the final results for the All-Star game rosters later this month.
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MLB is the oldest professional sport in America. As such, the historical timeline is long and full of influences. If one wanted to really reflect, it would not be difficult to find some sort of scandal from nearly every decade in its past. In 1919, the World Series played host to the Black Sox Scandal. Why it took a black man like Jackie Robinson almost a century to play MLB is a storyline flush with injustices and scandals. Then there’s the Pete Rose betting scandal of the 1980s, the steroid scandals of the 1990s/2000s which culminated in the Mitchell Report and federal grand jury indictments of many now retired players.
Even further PED scandals ensued with the Biogenesis one breaking in 2013 putting Alex Rodriguez in the spotlight. More recently, baseball’s golden team, the St. Louis Cardinals, have fallen victim to unsavory practices regarding the use of computer hacking within the organization.
While listening to the July 6 episode of the Effectively Wild podcast, co-host Sam Miller asked fellow co-host Ben Lindbergh if he thought MLB might have synthetically engineered the final results of the ASG starting rosters — particularly that of the American League squad. Lindbergh eventually shot down the possibility, but not after having some hesitation in his voice.
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The question of course was posed because of the controversy surrounding the Kansas City Royals, of which there are four starters scheduled to be representing the defending winners of the ALCS. Less than a month before the final vote results were tallied, the Royals had seven of the eight position players slated to start the game. Catcher Salvador Perez, shortstop Alcides Escobar and outfielders Alex Gordon and Lorenzo Cain remain in, but first baseman Eric Hosmer, Omar Infante and third baseman Mike Moustakas are now out.
Prevailing logic would suggest MLB fans rallied against injustice and unreasonably prideful Royals fans in the final weeks. However, there was no guarantee of that happening and thus keeping the integrity of the Midsummer Classic intact for yet another year. This is why Miller posed the question to Lingbergh in the first place.
Coincidentally, one of the players who was in the spotlight pitted against Moustakas for most of the polling was Josh Donaldson of the Jays. It turns out that not only did Donaldson end up surpassing his Royals counterpart in voting in the final days, but he garnered a record number of votes.
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This is probably the most compelling piece of evidence for any conspiracy surrounding the starters. Infante starting at second base would have been a joke, but the gap between he and current starter Jose Altuve is far greater than that of Donaldson and Moustakas. Jays fans have been avid voters in past seasons with fan favorite Jose Bautista, plus with the advent of social media campaigns, internet voting and Don Cherry, it’s not exactly fair to say that voter turnout numbers should trend downward in the coming years. But Donaldson’s votes were still a record number, and he plays on a Canadian team.
There are not more Blue Jays fans in Toronto than there are Yankees fans in New York or Dodgers fans in Los Angeles. But there are more Blue Jays fans in the whole of Canada than there are Royals fans in the United States. If you look at the record number of votes with that perspective in mind, it’s simple to believe the voting is untainted. Additionally, any baseball purist looking at the numbers — whether American or Canadian — would have to favor Donaldson over Moustakas and cast a vote in favor of the Blue Jays’ third baseman.
Donaldson’s 4.3 WAR is tied for the best at his position across all MLB. And guess what? He isn’t tied with Moustakas. The O’s Manny Machado also sports a 4.3 WAR. Moose’s 2.74 WAR ranks seventh at his position and third in the American League. The inconsistencies of Moustakas allow Donaldson to clearly be the better of the two options. The Royals’ third baseman hit only two home runs in June while Donaldson hit only three, but the bigger picture shows the Jays’ third baseman to be superior.
Not only has Moustakas failed to make a play like this on defense so far in 2015, but Donaldson leads MLB in runs scored, is fifth in hits and total bases, eighth in RBI and 12th in home runs. Moustakas fails to rank inside the top 10 for any one of those hitting categories. Bottom line is, a greater case could be made for Machado to start over Donaldson. But again, Baltimore does not have more baseball fans than Canada does.
While it’s unlikely MLB tampered with the results surrounding the All-Star Game rosters, any insight into the matter of a scandal picking up steam probably wouldn’t be revealed for months to come anyway. It’s even less likely that MLB would knowingly create controversy for the commissioner’s office in Rob Manfred’s inaugural season running the show.