ICYMI: Royals Fans Are Making A Joke Out of MLB

From Bryan Van Dusen

"Are they serious?"

I'm not the first person to write about the problems with the All Star game voting this season, but in case you don't read anything except The Greedy Pinstripes (and why would you bother to?), the Kansas City Royals have players currently leading at every position but one.

And that wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that only one of those players from Kansas City may actually deserve it. Here, I'll show you the vote leaders...

Catcher - Salvador Perez 
Perez is the current leader in votes at this position by about 4 million, even though his wRC+ of 114 is well behind that of Stephen Vogt (153) and Russell Martin (147).

First Base - Eric Hosmer
Hosmer is leading his position by about 476,000 votes, even though his wRC+ of 132 is not even close to the leader in that category at 1B, Miguel Cabrera at 186.

Second Base - Omar Infante
This may be the most ludicrous thing you'll ever see in baseball. Omar's wRC+ currently stands at 35, while Stephen Drew... yeah, the guy Yankees fans all seem to hate... has a wRC+ of 63.

Third Base - Mike Moustakas
Moustakas has a lead of about 1.7 million, and he is the lone Royals player that may actually deserve to start the All Star game. He's hitting .320/.378/.564, and while Moustakas is behind Josh Donaldson in wRC+ (156 to 136), it's only because of Donaldson's home run total.

Shortstop - Alcides Escobar
Escobar is currently fourth in wRC+ among AL shortstops, behind Marcus Semien, Brad Miller, and Xander Bogaerts. And while none of those three players ahead of Alcides are lighting things up, their wRC+ is 25 to 30 points higher.

Outfield - Lorenzo Cain, Mike Trout, Alex Gordon
Cain is the leading vote getter among AL outfielders, about 700,000 ahead of Mike Trout. While the voting at second base may be the most insane thing happening with ASG voting this year, this isn't too far behind. That would be thanks to the fact that both Nelson Cruz and Mike Trout have a wRC+ of 169, followed by Josh Reddick at 156 and Jose Bautista at 151. Cain is actually 17th among AL outfielders in wRC+ at 110, while Gordon is 9th at 131 (yep, Royals fans couldn't even get the order of their own players right). Oh, and the 4th place vote-getter in the AL outfield is currently Alex Rios, a guy that's hit a pathetic .214/.247/.300 in only 19 games this season.

Designated Hitter - Kendrys Morales
Morales leads this position by about 550,000 votes, which isn't that bad seeing as how his wRC+ is 122. The problem with that, though, is that there are 29 hitters in the league doing better than that.

I would have said that the manager of the AL all star team should play all those Royals for a just one inning, before replacing them with players that are more deserving. But the manager of this year's AL squad is the Royals' manager Ned Yost, so that probably won't happen. In fact, Yost found no problem in the voting process, saying that if fans don't like it they should get out and vote more.

Then Eric Hosmer came out and said that it can't just be Royals' fans voting for players from KC. He said that that was due to the fact that three guys (at the time) had gotten 4 million votes, and they "can't be just coming from Kansas City."

First of all, Mr. Hosmer, as hard as it may be to accept, I'm sure there are a few Royals fans that live outside of Kansas City.

Secondly, fans can vote up to 45 35 times. So let's do the math... There are 467,000 people in Kansas City. Take 467,000 and multiply it by 45 35, and that equals 21,015,000  16,345,000. That means there are over 21 million possible votes coming from the Royals' home town alone. While I'm sure not all of the people living in that city are baseball fans, it's absolutely possible for every one of those 4 million votes he spoke of to come from Royals fans.

Look, if some fans want to treat the All Star Game like a joke that's fine. I don't like it, as I would hate to see the MLB All Star Game end up being as pointless as the NFL All Pro Game (edit: the fact that I got the name of the game wrong is a testament to how "great" it is). However, allowing a joke to affect the World Series makes the World Series look... well... like a joke. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is worried so much about pace of play, but he should worry more about the integrity of the game, which is being hurt a lot worse by it's championship being made to look bad.

MLB Cancels 60 Million All Star Votes

First of all, allow me to apologize.

In a recent post I said that fans could vote 45 times, and therefore that meant that the city of Kansas City could have as many as 21 million votes. That means that every single vote for a Royals player could be coming from their home city, which goes against what Hosmer was trying to say when attempting to show that there was nothing nefarious going on.

The problem is that fans can't vote 45 times. No, they can only vote 35 times. So Kansas City alone can not account for 21 million votes. No, they could only account for over 16 million.

Hmm... that's still enough for every vote for a Royals player to be coming from the same city. The Royals home city, that is. So I guess I'm apologizing for the technical error, although my point still rings true.

Anyway...

It turns out that Major League Baseball believes there's a voting problem too, as they have nullified over 60 million votes that they believe to be "improper".

Honestly, all it takes to vote more than 35 times is to create another free email account, or some rudimentary hacking skills. So while this move may help things, it certainly doesn't solve them.

The next update on American League All Star voting will come out on Monday. It will be interesting to see if Omar Infante's lead over Jose Altuve still holds up (he was only up by about 300,000 in the latest update on Monday). Not to mention a few other "iffy" results I pointed out earlier.

Royals Fans Are Making A Joke Out of MLB

"Are they serious?"

I'm not the first person to write about the problems with the All Star game voting this season, but in case you don't read anything except The Greedy Pinstripes (and why would you bother to?), the Kansas City Royals have players currently leading at every position but one.

And that wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that only one of those players from Kansas City may actually deserve it. Here, I'll show you the vote leaders...

Catcher - Salvador Perez 
Perez is the current leader in votes at this position by about 4 million, even though his wRC+ of 114 is well behind that of Stephen Vogt (153) and Russell Martin (147).

First Base - Eric Hosmer
Hosmer is leading his position by about 476,000 votes, even though his wRC+ of 132 is not even close to the leader in that category at 1B, Miguel Cabrera at 186.

Second Base - Omar Infante
This may be the most ludicrous thing you'll ever see in baseball. Omar's wRC+ currently stands at 35, while Stephen Drew... yeah, the guy Yankees fans all seem to hate... has a wRC+ of 63.

Third Base - Mike Moustakas
Moustakas has a lead of about 1.7 million, and he is the lone Royals player that may actually deserve to start the All Star game. He's hitting .320/.378/.564, and while Moustakas is behind Josh Donaldson in wRC+ (156 to 136), it's only because of Donaldson's home run total.

Shortstop - Alcides Escobar
Escobar is currently fourth in wRC+ among AL shortstops, behind Marcus Semien, Brad Miller, and Xander Bogaerts. And while none of those three players ahead of Alcides are lighting things up, their wRC+ is 25 to 30 points higher.

Outfield - Lorenzo Cain, Mike Trout, Alex Gordon
Cain is the leading vote getter among AL outfielders, about 700,000 ahead of Mike Trout. While the voting at second base may be the most insane thing happening with ASG voting this year, this isn't too far behind. That would be thanks to the fact that both Nelson Cruz and Mike Trout have a wRC+ of 169, followed by Josh Reddick at 156 and Jose Bautista at 151. Cain is actually 17th among AL outfielders in wRC+ at 110, while Gordon is 9th at 131 (yep, Royals fans couldn't even get the order of their own players right). Oh, and the 4th place vote-getter in the AL outfield is currently Alex Rios, a guy that's hit a pathetic .214/.247/.300 in only 19 games this season.

Designated Hitter - Kendrys Morales
Morales leads this position by about 550,000 votes, which isn't that bad seeing as how his wRC+ is 122. The problem with that, though, is that there are 29 hitters in the league doing better than that.

I would have said that the manager of the AL all star team should play all those Royals for a just one inning, before replacing them with players that are more deserving. But the manager of this year's AL squad is the Royals' manager Ned Yost, so that probably won't happen. In fact, Yost found no problem in the voting process, saying that if fans don't like it they should get out and vote more.

Then Eric Hosmer came out and said that it can't just be Royals' fans voting for players from KC. He said that that was due to the fact that three guys (at the time) had gotten 4 million votes, and they "can't be just coming from Kansas City."

First of all, Mr. Hosmer, as hard as it may be to accept, I'm sure there are a few Royals fans that live outside of Kansas City.

Secondly, fans can vote up to 45 times. So let's do the math... There are 467,000 people in Kansas City. Take 467,000 and multiply it by 45, and that equals 21,015,000. That means there are over 21 million possible votes coming from the Royals' home town alone. While I'm sure not all of the people living in that city are baseball fans, it's absolutely possible for every one of those 4 million votes he spoke of to come from Royals fans.

Look, if some fans want to treat the All Star Game like a joke that's fine. I don't like it, as I would hate to see the MLB All Star Game end up being as pointless as the NFL All Pro Game (edit: the fact that I got the name of the game wrong is a testament to how "great" it is). However, allowing a joke to affect the World Series makes the World Series look... well... like a joke. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is worried so much about pace of play, but he should worry more about the integrity of the game, which is being hurt a lot worse by it's championship being made to look bad.