All-Star 2013 Voting

We're still five days away from the one-month anniversary of Opening Day 2013 and voting for the All-Star Game has already begun! I once was a firm believer that less than a month is far too small a sample size to judge the performance of even midseason All-Stars, but when you think about the fact that the All-Star Game takes place only slightly more than three months into the season, it's not so bad as all that. And seeing as I've been following baseball more closely this season than in years past, why shouldn't I be among the very first crop of fans to make their opinions known about who should be playing in the midsummer classic?

So I signed on with my MLB.com account (which gave me an extra 10 votes, pushing my grand allotted total to 35) and checked out which players grace this year's ballot. To make my decision, I strictly adhered to the fantasy point system I use for all my lists, the player evaluation method that I trust above all others. Looking at just fantasy points is slightly closed minded, but keep in mind, I still have at least three more email addresses to utilize, so my All-Star voting is far from over in 2013. In later passes I will start looking at traditional stats and sabermetrics such as WAR (from Baseball Reference of course, even though most of the baseball blogosphere seems to prefer the Fan Graphs version). But for now, here are the players who got my first 35 votes (points are current as of yesterday, the first day of All-Star voting):

Starting with the player with the highest point total, Justin Upton should be the top vote getter in 2013 just based on his April alone. He leads his league in HR (with a Braves April record 11), SLG, OPS, and total bases, he's a virtual lock for player of the month, and if he maintains even half this pace for the rest of the year (and if the Braves continue to steamroll their opponents) he could have a good case for MVP. Sticking with Upton's position brings us to the next highest-scoring player in all of baseball: Oakland's own Coco Crisp. One of the reasons I like the point system so much is because of its complete objectivity, allowing me to extoll the virtues of a player on my favorite team without the fear of displaying a discernible bias. It's safe to say that Covelli won't hit home runs at his current clip for the whole season (he's on pace to pass 30, just less than double his career high from 2005 with the Indians) but he will continue to get on base and steal bases with great regularity.

Moving onto the rest of the outfield crop (since the All-Star Game does not differentiate between the three positions), the NL looks a lot more impressive than the AL here. Carlos Gonzalez (one of only four players with 20+ points per game as of this writing) is a big part of Colorado's unexpected early success and Bryce Harper was recently nominated as a poster boy for how to play major league baseball. At the time I cast my ballot, Harper and Shin-Soo Choo were tied for total points, but I picked Harper because of his hustle and his higher PPG. But if the NL had a DH slot (like the AL), I would have picked Choo for it, which would be an ideal place for him given his well-documented defensive struggles in center field. A pair of center fielders join Crisp on my AL ballot: Jacoby Ellsbury racked up most of his points with pure speed (10 for 10 in stolen base attempts) and Adam Jones earned his spot with batting average (he co-leads the league with 30 hits), and while it might make more logical sense for the team to have more of a power hitter in one of these spots, the points don't lie. Since All-Star votes are sometimes awarded based on the previous season rather than the current one, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw Mike Trout fill one of these spots.

Speaking of power, Jones's Orioles teammate Chris Davis has had a start for the ages, leading the AL in SLG, OPS, and total bases (sound familiar?), but I'm worried his lack of star power will cause him to be overlooked in favor of a big recognizable name like Prince Fielder. The same is true of Paul Goldschmidt in the NL, except for the part where he leads his league in all those offensive categories. If Goldy were to give way to more of a household name like Joey Votto, I'd be okay with that. Robinson Cano (AL 2B) and David Wright (NL 3B) are tied for points, and they're both tops in their respective leagues at their positions, so there were no issues here. Their interleague counterparts (Brandon Phillips and Miguel Cabrera) also clearly deserve spots on their teams, so this was a no-brainer.

In another instance of the numbers clearly supporting a player on my favorite team, Jed Lowrie's amazing start for the A's (he's the AL's co-leader in hits along with Adam Jones) has clearly earned him a spot on this team. There's no other shortstop in his league that has even approached Lowrie's production, and I really hope he's recognized for his efforts. His NL counterpart Troy Tulowitzki, along with his Rockies teammate CarGo, shows how a couple of megastars firing on all cylinders can propel even a consensus projected last place team to a first place April. John Buck's power surge behind the plate has been nothing short of amazing, especially given that he was considered little more than a placeholder in the R.A. Dickey for Travis d'Arnaud trade between the Mets and the Blue Jays. But if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Buster Posey for reasons outlined above. Carlos Santana is the second Indian I have on my ballot (I tabbed Mark Reynolds as the DH) if he can stay healthy enough to play - already in this young season, the Dominican star has missed time with a bruised hand and flu-like symptoms.

I encourage everyone to take a look at the players and the stats and throw some votes towards the most deserving players in the MLB. Because not only is home field advantage in the World Series on the line, these votes directly determine who will play in a very fun and exciting exhibition matchup this summer!