Colorado Rockies: If David Dahl played for the Cubs, he’d be an All-Star

It’s that time of year again.  The time when some of the game’s best players get overlooked while some of the most overrated players on teams in the biggest markets travel to play in an All-Star game that is becoming more and more of a joke every year.

Don’t get me wrong, I love watching the MLB All-Star Game and I’m thrilled that it no longer determines home-field advantage in the World Series.  However, there are certain mind-boggling aspects of our current ASG situation that are going to drive fans mad–and I’m not just talking about the head-scratching decision to have Google searches equal All-Star votes.

Every year we go through the same discussion, the only thing that makes this year different is just how much worse it looks.  I think it’s safe to say that there are fans of 14 other National League teams that are tired of seeing Chicago Cubs players atop voting leader-boards well ahead of where their performances suggest they should be.

This has been a problem since the Cubs returned to relevance in 2015 but it has reached new levels of ridiculousness in 2019.

Currently, the Cubs have three outfielders in the top 9 in voting, which is strange because they probably only have one outfielder who would qualify as a top 10 in the NL–Kyle Schwarber.  Right now Albert Almora, Jr is fourth in OF voting in the NL.  Almora is a decent player but he is far from the fourth-best outfielder in the NL.  He’s hitting in the .250’s with 7 HR, 21 RBI, and only 2 stolen bases.  Almora’s OBP is under .300 (!) and yet he is safely in fourth place while far better players like Charlie Blackmon (who’s hitting .336 with 17 HR, 48 RBI and a 1.031 OPS) and Bryce Harper (12 HR and 50 RBI) battle for a spot in the top 9.

The third Cubs’ outfielder, Jason Heyward, currently sits in fifth in NL OF voting, posting a .250 batting average, 10 HR and 26 RBI–once again these numbers hardly reflect a top 5 NL outfielder.

Cubs fans will argue that Heyward is having his best season in years, which is true, but if that is the criteria for receiving All-Star votes than where is the support for Ian Desmond who is also having his best season in years?

Not only that, but Desmond is also having a better season than Heyward and Almora, hitting .271 with 10 HR, 39 RBI, and 19 doubles (trailing only Harper, Dahl and David Peralta for the NL lead among outfielders in that category).

My point isn’t that Ian Desmond should be an All-Star but he is certainly more deserving than two of the current top 5.  Nick Markakis is sixth in voting and has had almost an identical season to Dahl except Dahl has about sixty more points on his batting average.

There’s no excuse for what is happening on the NL All-Star ballot right now.  This has been a problem in the past but it’s never been nearly this bad.

This problem isn’t only affecting Rockies players either.  The New York Mets’ Jeff McNeil is hitting .339 and has been among the batting leaders all season and yet he currently sits a distant 20th in voting.

Marcell Ozuna has been one of the best hitters in the National League in 2019 (18 HR, 57 RBI) and he is well outside the top 9 at 15th.  Franmil Reyes has 20 HR and he is nowhere to be seen in the All-Star returns.

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Trevor Story has gotten most of the attention of Rockies fans for his position in the voting and rightfully so.  Story’s lack of votes has been atrocious since he leads NL shortstops in batting average (.294), RBI (48), stolen bases (12), and his 17 HR are one off the pace of Javier Baez who has 4 times as many votes as Story (1,672,062 compared to Story’s 457,159) and sits in first while Story was in fourth as of the last update.

But this problem is much more than just an anomaly at the NL Shortstop position.  It’s a deep-seeded, growing issue that awards players for playing in cities with the largest populations rather than for having the best seasons at their position.  The resulting “all star” game hurts players, disappoints fans, and quite honestly is beginning to make a mockery of the sport.

Making the correct All-Star selections is crucial for the growth of the sports as well as for players when the time comes they are up for Hall of Fame votes.  Complaints of snubs should be taken seriously instead of being brushed off as whining from home-town fans.

If MLB commissioner Rob Manfred wants to increase the baseball fan-base he should spend less time on pitch clocks and more time trying to fix a Midsummer Classic that is supposed to be a National Exhibition of everything great in baseball but instead has turned into a perfect example of everything wrong with the league in 2019.