MLB All-Star Game 2015: Giancarlo Stanton, Dee Gordon still lead All-Star voting

Giancarlo Stanton may not be having the start to his season that he had last year, but he is still among the best outfielders in the National League. On the other hand, Dee Gordon has not been hitting as well as he did in the first month, but he still has had the hottest start of any second baseman in baseball. Put that together and a Miami Marlins team that has struggled in the early part of the season still has two players who are in line to start at the 2015 MLB All-Star Game next month in Cincinnati.

Gordon, who leads the majors in hits (87) and average (.366), has 2,226,127 votes, ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals' Kolten Wong (2,113,069). Gordon played in the Midsummer Classic last season as a reserve.

Stanton is tied for the major-league lead in home runs (19) with the Washington Nationals' Bryce Harper and paces MLB in RBI (49). He has the third-most votes (1,743,271) among National League outfielders, behind Harper (3,690,414) and the Cardinals' Matt Holliday (2,693,412).

Since that article, the voting has continued to go Stanton's and Gordon's ways. Stanton hit two more home runs, putting him at a league-leading 21 bombs on the season, which continues his record pace to start the year. Gordon is still hitting .356/.381/.421 (.349 wOBA), and while that is a stark drop from what he was doing at the beginning of the year, it is still a very effective batting line for a second baseman who has played well defensively.

Stanton is third overall in the outfield voting behind the very well deserving Bryce Harper (.328/.463/.713, .486 wOBA) and the not-so-deserving Matt Holliday (.303/.417/.421, .366 wOBA). Stanton leads all players in home runs, and his recent power surge has bumped that batting line up to .246/.331/.580 (.381 wOBA). Among NL outfielders, that is the fourth-best batting line, behind Harper, Joc Pederson, and a resurgent Andre Ethier. Given that we know Stanton has also run into a bout of bad luck on balls in play, we should expect things only to go up from here.

Gordon leads the second base race ahead of Kolten Wong. Wong is third in the NL in FanGraphs Wins Above Replacement (fWAR), about a win behind Gordon, who leads them all with 2.7 fWAR. Joe Panik of the San Francisco Giants is second and has the most impressive batting line among second baseman, as he is hitting .324/.388/.486 (.381 wOBA) on the year. Gordon holds a 110,000 vote edge on Wong and is more than a million votes ahead of Panik.

Stanton sits third on the FanGraphs WAR leaderboard among NL outfielers behind Pederson and Harper, and he should consider those guys his prime competition. You have to figure Los Angeles Dodgers fans will get into the voting and start hyping up their rookie center fielder now that he has been receiving national press for his own recent power surge. The rookie is hitting .249/.357/.557 (.397 wOBA) with 17 home runs, a very impressive output that should at least land him a reserve spot in the game. At the same time, for the time being, Pederson is 10th in the balloting with just 930,511 votes. He may be too far behind to make a serious comeback for the lead vote.

Be on the lookout for popular risers like Andrew McCutchen (.292/.376/.498, .374 wOBA) and Nori Aoki (.333/.402/.413, .364 wOBA) as well, as they sit fifth (1,214,997 votes) and fourth (1,696,369) respectively. The San Francisco Giants fans are notorious for getting out the vote, so Aoki could be gaining strong traction with him less than 100,000 votes behind Stanton.

You can still vote for your All-Star team starters by clicking on this link! Let's get Stanton and Gordon starting spots in this year's All-Star Game!