Shane Victorino is a good player having a good season. His OPS is .838 and he plays really good defense. But is he better than Pablo Sandoval this year? Not even close. Sandoval has an OPS of .940, a full .102 higher than Victorino. But Philadelphia has a larger fan base than San Francisco does and thus, in the "Vote for the Last Man" thing, Victorino gets the last spot in the All Star Game.
The fan vote is touted as something that gets fans into the game. It is touted as empowering fans to have a voice in who they want to see. But from this Fan's perspective, Giant fans want to see Sandoval in the game as much as Philly fans want to see Victorino. The problem is that there are more Philly fans than there are San Francisco fans.
The fan vote, both in this instance and in the vote for the starters will always heavily favor the larger markets. And as long as this game is going to be selected as it is, there will always be a large number of Red Sox and Yankees and Mets and Phillies because those are large and emphatic fan bases. For all the good intentions of MLB, the fan vote doesn't work and hasn't for a long time.
3 comments:
Lind's .941 OPS didn't make it, either. What can you do?
The Flyin' Hawaiian is a fun player to watch and is having a great year so far, but Sandoval AND Reynolds deserved it more than him.
And now they've got to do something about Matt Cain's roster spot. Jair Jurrjens is a worthy replacement.
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