Rollins overtakes Hanley in All-Star Votes

But public voting is tradition and probably won’t change. It makes fans feel more in tune with the game and adds value to tickets and sponsorships. It’s all about dollars and cents and as far as MLB is concerned having a fair game doesn’t matter to that. If it did, bullpens would be a lot more full, players would get compensated (though they do get $$$$$$ of free gifts), and it would be played in stadiums that allow the greatest ## of fans to attend.

That being said, I think if players like Manny and that guy from Nat’s Town make it on a roster, or even close to a roster, MLB will consider how voting is done this off season. Or at least I hope…

For one, we’re talking about guys with minimal talent difference who are playing, what, three innings? The performance difference between Hanley and Rollins over that short amount of time is negligible. Hell, the difference between Hanley and Bonerface over that short amount of time is practically negligible. Not to mention the fact that there is no way Hanley won’t make the team or won’t play; in fact, it’s highly possible Hanley will play as much or more as a bench player than as a starter.

Moreover, the idea of World Series home field is pretty negligible as well. Depending on which historical records you want to use (all MLB games vs. playoff games vs. World Series games), a match-up of two equal teams will see the team with home field advantage win the series 51-52% of the time. MLB HFA isn’t huge to begin with (54-57%, again depending on which games you want to look at), and the nature of a playoff series is that the biggest advantage you can get is one extra game. If we were talking about getting home field for the entire series, it’d be worth worrying about; otherwise, not so much.

That being said, there are a ton of things “less important” than the World Series that are affected quite greatly by the All-Star Game. Things like bonuses, arbitration rulings, awards voting, HOF voting… the fact that things like this can be affected by fan voting is less than fantastic. Then again, I’d honestly rather have the millions of MLB fans doing the voting than the hundred or so members of the BBWAA or even the players themselves (who, much like coaches in college football, often don’t actually vote but rather hand it off to some clubhouse assistant).

All in all, until they let me, and me alone, set the teams, we’re going to have less than perfect results. I just embrace the failings, because in the end, it’s much more fun to try to work up some outrage than it would be to look at the results and just go “hmm, not bad actually.”

I’m going to go ahead and put my vote in for Hanely right now and i urge the other 11 marlins fans to do the same. We might have to vote 250,000 times each but we can get this done.