As I noted earlier in the week and in response to Mighty’s post, I really dislike the way Major League Baseball handles the “Final Vote” for its All-Star Game. According to the MLB website, AJ Pierzynski of the Chicago White Sox is leading the five man race in the American League Final Vote standings. This brought me to think about the two main flaws of the Final Vote system:
1. Dubious Selection Process. There is no transparency in the selection process. If MLB is truly committed to a democratic procedure for selecting the last player in each league’s roster, MLB would inform its fans of how this pool of players was selected. What are the criteria? Is it based on positional need? Is it based on how these players did in the overall voting? Do the managers and coaches of each team compile the list of nominees? Does the commissioner’s office play a part in the process?
The purpose of these questions is to ascertain exactly how extremely worthy players such as Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Justin Morneau, Magglio Ordonez, Carl Crawford, and Brian Roberts were omitted. Each of these players is certainly as worthy as the current list of five nominated players from the American League and, in each case, potentially more qualified than Pierzynski.
Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the concept of “This Time It Counts”, the All-Star Game is still a glorified exhibition contest. Rosters already do not conform to the league-mandated 25-man limit (the American League will have 34 All-Stars (including injured players) after the Final Vote is announced). Why not expand the Final Vote nominees to include more of the worthy players that were originally omitted? Why not pick two or three of the most deserving seven, eight, or even 10? Baseball only stands to gain by rewarding players like Liriano and Hafner for their outstanding seasons thus far. Leaving them out of the festivities in Pittsburgh does no one (except for AJ Pierzynski’s roster bonus) any good.
2. Secrecy Of Vote Results. If there is no transparency in the selection process, there is even less so in the actual voting. MLB makes a big deal every year about the voting results of the All-Star Game ballot. They constantly update the voting tallies and not a day goes by that MLB doesn’t prod fans checking its website, encouraging them to vote as many times as necessary to ensure that their favorite players make it to the Midsummer Classic. If baseball makes such a spectacle of the regular voting, why not publicize the results of the Final Man vote?
I am not accusing MLB of vote-rigging; fans of all 30 teams are more than capable of over-stuffing ballot boxes on their own. But given MLB’s credibility gap in other respects, I cannot understand the logic of keeping the Final Vote results so secretive. Such secrecy only gives skeptics more reason to doubt the Final Vote and to view it as a tool for rewarding certain owners/teams/players for towing MLB’s company line.
Of course, a reasonable question could be “What does MLB stand to gain by rigging an election in favor of AJ Pierzynski over Francisco Liriano or Travis Hafner?” Certainly Liriano and Hafner are the Twins’ and Indians’ (and, consequently, MLB’s) meal-tickets in terms of marquee value for fans. Pierzynski is a hated player among fans and opposing players alike and MLB certainly can’t market him the way they could market a phenom ace or a young slugger.
Which only brings me back to my original question – if MLB gains nothing by rigging the Final Vote, why not erase doubts and show fans the voting results. After all, I could answer the above question by saying that Commissioner Selig owes his job to White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf whereas he’s already repaid the Twins owner Carl Pohlad’s “loan” with the proceeds he made off the sale of the Brewers...
1. Dubious Selection Process. There is no transparency in the selection process. If MLB is truly committed to a democratic procedure for selecting the last player in each league’s roster, MLB would inform its fans of how this pool of players was selected. What are the criteria? Is it based on positional need? Is it based on how these players did in the overall voting? Do the managers and coaches of each team compile the list of nominees? Does the commissioner’s office play a part in the process?
The purpose of these questions is to ascertain exactly how extremely worthy players such as Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Justin Morneau, Magglio Ordonez, Carl Crawford, and Brian Roberts were omitted. Each of these players is certainly as worthy as the current list of five nominated players from the American League and, in each case, potentially more qualified than Pierzynski.
Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the concept of “This Time It Counts”, the All-Star Game is still a glorified exhibition contest. Rosters already do not conform to the league-mandated 25-man limit (the American League will have 34 All-Stars (including injured players) after the Final Vote is announced). Why not expand the Final Vote nominees to include more of the worthy players that were originally omitted? Why not pick two or three of the most deserving seven, eight, or even 10? Baseball only stands to gain by rewarding players like Liriano and Hafner for their outstanding seasons thus far. Leaving them out of the festivities in Pittsburgh does no one (except for AJ Pierzynski’s roster bonus) any good.
2. Secrecy Of Vote Results. If there is no transparency in the selection process, there is even less so in the actual voting. MLB makes a big deal every year about the voting results of the All-Star Game ballot. They constantly update the voting tallies and not a day goes by that MLB doesn’t prod fans checking its website, encouraging them to vote as many times as necessary to ensure that their favorite players make it to the Midsummer Classic. If baseball makes such a spectacle of the regular voting, why not publicize the results of the Final Man vote?
I am not accusing MLB of vote-rigging; fans of all 30 teams are more than capable of over-stuffing ballot boxes on their own. But given MLB’s credibility gap in other respects, I cannot understand the logic of keeping the Final Vote results so secretive. Such secrecy only gives skeptics more reason to doubt the Final Vote and to view it as a tool for rewarding certain owners/teams/players for towing MLB’s company line.
Of course, a reasonable question could be “What does MLB stand to gain by rigging an election in favor of AJ Pierzynski over Francisco Liriano or Travis Hafner?” Certainly Liriano and Hafner are the Twins’ and Indians’ (and, consequently, MLB’s) meal-tickets in terms of marquee value for fans. Pierzynski is a hated player among fans and opposing players alike and MLB certainly can’t market him the way they could market a phenom ace or a young slugger.
Which only brings me back to my original question – if MLB gains nothing by rigging the Final Vote, why not erase doubts and show fans the voting results. After all, I could answer the above question by saying that Commissioner Selig owes his job to White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf whereas he’s already repaid the Twins owner Carl Pohlad’s “loan” with the proceeds he made off the sale of the Brewers...
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