Kansas City Royals: Eric Hosmer’s All Star bid an interesting one
Kansas City Royals fans have a habit of stuffing the ballot box for one of their best players, Eric Hosmer. However, if he doesn’t get an automatic bid into the game as a starter via the fan vote, there is a high likelihood that he won’t make it to Miami at all.
As of Monday, Kansas City Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer led the voting as the American League’s starting first baseman by roughly 72,000 votes over Justin Smoak of the Toronto Blue Jays and has a few hundred thousand vote lead over the A’s Yonder Alonso. The rub lies in the fact that Smoak has nearly the entire Canadian vote working for him down the stretch, and with such a small margin to work with, Hosmer may in fact not make the team at all.
I’ve written in the past that Homser is a fine first baseman, but he shouldn’t be one of the pieces that the Royals shell out big money on. Free agency will likely land him a sizable deal this winter, and the Royals would be wise not to lock up a good portion of their payroll on a slightly above average player.
The reason that Hosmer gets the acclaim that he does, and rightfully so, is because of the postseason resume that he has built. It felt like he was in the middle of any come-from-behind rally the Royals had in ’14 and ’15 and scored the tying run in the top of the ninth in the clinching game of the World Series with some heads up base running. He’s a good player, just not a perennial all star.
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According to FanGraphs, Hosmer ranks seventh among American League first basemen in wRC+ (120) behind both Alonso, who is having a breakout season and could be the A’s lone representative, and Smoak, both of whom have put up a 2.0 fWAR compared to Hosmer’s 0.8. Homser is batting .306 with a .365 OBP, but his nine homers rank 12th, one ahead of the recently DFA’d Chris Carter. Joey Gallo, who strikes out in every at bat in which he doesn’t homer, has nearly double the WAR that Hosmer has tallied.
Without an outstanding stat line, relying on the votes is the only path Homser has this season. If Smoak wins the vote, the A’s need to send someone, and it’s likely that someone will be Alonso assuming he’s healthy. The Royals are roughly a .500 team at this point in the season, but so is half of the American League. They’re not going to get preferential treatment with a slew of additions to the team due to their record, and Salvador Perez has pretty much locked up their requisite one representative, leading Gary Sanchez in the voting by over one million at last tally.
The Roayls could end up with an additional rep on the AL club in Miami, but with Hosmer’s stats ranking among the bottom half of AL first basemen, the likelihood that he’ll be added by Terry Francona is pretty slim. Heck, Lorenzo Cain has tripled his WAR output, Mike Moustakas is at 1.5, and even Whit Merrifield holds a slight edge (0.9 to 0.8), placing Hosmer in fifth place on his own team.
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It’s admirable that the fans of Kansas City stand behind one of their favorite players, but if their support doesn’t place him in the game outright, he’ll be free to make some alternate plans for All Star week.