Phase 1 of MLB’s All-Star voting process will run through June 25, but on Monday the league provided an update on where things stand after nearly two weeks of voting.
Once the opening phase concludes, the top two vote-getters at each position (and the top six outfielders) from both the American and National League will advance to Phase 2 of All-Star voting. Additionally, the player from the AL and NL to receive the most votes will also be guaranteed a starting spot in the lineup.
In the first update of Phase 1, it came as no surprise that Shohei Ohtani led all players with 1,165,133 votes. He’s on pace to earn an automatic bid to the All-Star Game to represent the National League as the starting designated hitter. For the American League, Yordan Álvarez led the charge with 1,015,768 votes, sitting narrowly ahead of the injured Aaron Judge for the top spot. Should those early results hold true until the end of Phase 1, Ohtani and Álvarez would be slotted in as the starting DHs for the Midsummer Classic.
Here's what stood out from the inital batch of voting results.
Blue Jays, Dodgers fans are showing out in fan voting
The Dodgers continue to show they have MLB’s most active fan base, with seven players sitting in the spots to qualify for Phase 2 at their respective positions. Not all of them have warranted the volume of votes they’ve received, however.
As it stands, a Dodger is projected to move on in the National League voting at catcher (Will Smith), first base (Freddie Freeman), third base (Max Muncy), shortstop (Mookie Betts), outfield (Andy Pages, Teoscar Hernández) and designated hitter (Ohtani). Smith and Betts have both struggled and missed time due to injuries this year, but they have the full support of Dodgers fans as evidenced by their lofty vote tallies.
The same can be said for the Blue Jays. Toronto has representatives in the top two of every position except for the outfield, with the likes of Alejandro Kirk, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Ernie Clement, Kazuma Okamoto, Andrés Gimenez and George Springer all garnering a significant amount of votes. At the time of writing, not a single one of them has an OPS above .800. Guerrero, despite having his worst season in MLB, leads the American League in votes at first base, even ahead of breakout Yankees star Ben Rice who sits just behind in second. Clement ranks fourth among all American League position players with 904,702 votes, trailing only Alvarez, Aaron Judge and Mike Trout.
It’s understandable for Jays players to dominate the fan vote. After all, they just made the World Series and have a whole country supporting them as the lone MLB team from Canada.
MLB’s breakout rookies haven’t received the love they deserve
At the start of this season, there was plenty of talk about the impressive rookie class that was breaking through in MLB. There’s arguably never been this much young talent producing at a high level across the league, yet it seems as if many of these breakout stars have still not become household names.
Players like Tigers shortstop Kevin McGonigle, Cardinals second baseman JJ Wetherholt, White Sox slugger Munetaka Murakami and Orioles catcher/designated hitter Samuel Basallo all find themselves outside the top two at their respective positions. In fact, as it stands, the only rookie that’s on pace to edge out a top-two spot is Okamoto, who has the backing of the widespread Blue Jays fan base.
McGonigle, currently on pace to win the AL Rookie of the Year, is third among AL shortstops. Wetherholt, the favorite for the NL Rookie of the Year, ranks ninth among NL second basemen. Murakami, who set various records through the month of May before landing on the IL, is third among AL first basemen and Basallo ranks sixth at DH in the American League.
Of course, many of these rookies play for teams with smaller fan bases than the players receiving the most votes at their position, but it would’ve been nice to see them get a bit more respect from voters.
Marlins remain MLB's most overlooked team
The Marlins’ offense has multiple players deserving of making the All-Star Game this season, yet none of Miami’s best hitters are even inside the top four at their positions.
Otto López leads MLB with a .343 batting average and 97 hits, yet he finds himself in fifth among NL shortstops, and not particularly close to moving up in the race. López ranks 12th in all of MLB in fWAR at 3.0, which is the most among his ballot group, but he’s still trailing the likes of Mookie Betts and Trea Turner in All-Star voting.
Xavier Edwards who has also been excellent for the Marlins, is eighth among NL second basemen, buried beneath some far less deserving players such as Bryson Stott and Hyeseong Kim, both of whom have received more than double the amount of votes as Edwards. Liam Hicks has also been a bright spot for the Marlins, but he’s seventh among NL catchers and has received only narrowly more than 100,000 total votes.
The AL catcher race will go down to the wire
Shea Langeliers has comfortably (and deservedly) locked up the top spot among American League catchers in the first voting update. Behind him, things are totally up for grabs. Second in voting thus far is Blue Jays backstop Alejandro Kirk with 298,401 votes. There are four more catchers within 85,000 votes of Kirk, including Adley Rutschman (261,607), Dillon Dingler (261,084), Ryan Jeffers (235,679), and Cal Raleigh (213,549).
With so little votes separating places No. 2 through No. 6, we could see plenty of movement in this race by the time Phase 1 concludes. No other positional race is quite as closely contested as the second spot among AL catchers, so it’ll be extremely interesting to see how this ultimately plays out.
Dingler is perhaps the most deserving of the group. The Tigers’ backstop has been sensational, with a 3.0 fWAR mark that ranks seventh in all of MLB. A stalwart defensive catcher, Dingler has also been brilliant at the plate, logging a 134 wRC+ with 16 home runs in 64 games.
Wade Meckler has more votes than teammate Jo Adell (and many other outfielders)
Mike Trout leads all Angels outfielders with over 926,000 votes. But two more of Anaheim’s outfielders cracked the top 20 in the American League––Jo Adell and Wade Meckler.
If you haven’t heard of Meckler, you’re not alone. The 26-year-old only debuted for the Angels on May 22 and has played in a total of 20 games this season. His last stint in MLB was in 2023 when he played in 20 games for the Giants. Surprisingly, Meckler has received nearly 50,000 more votes than Adell, sitting 12th among American League outfielders at the first checkpoint of the voting process.
Despite the lack of games under Meckler’s belt, he’s been hot at the plate since returning to the big leagues. He’s recorded a .843 OPS with two home runs and 12 RBIs across 61 at-bats this season. And that's with him having cooled off a bit since voting opened; the day Phase 1 began on June 3, Meckler went 4-for-5 to boost his OPS to 1.060. Either his inflated stats caused some fans to vote for him without realizing they came in a small sample size, or he’s developed something of a cult following among Halos supporters. Meckler’s 206,242 votes are more than some other notable outfielders in the American League, including Ceddanne Rafaela, Wilyer Abreu, Trent Grisham, Tyler Soderstrom and Steven Kwan, among others.
