Miguel Cabrera Leading in First Base AL All-Star Voting
The midsummer classic is drawing closer and with that the MLB has sent out updates to how the fans are voting for American League and National League starters.
For Tigers fans, there is only one name to find and it is easy to find him. Miguel Cabrera is at the top of the first base voting list so far.
Miggy has amassed over 475,000 votes, the Athletics Yonder Alonso trails Cabrera in 2nd with over 430,000 votes in the first base category. The Indians Carlos Santana (~420,000) and Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer (~400,000) are also within shouting distance of the starting nod.
From the first All-Star voting update last week, Cabrera has extended his lead over second place by a couple of thousand votes but the margin between first and fourth shrunk by about 25,000 votes.
Putting it bluntly, it's too close to call.
American League first base is simultaneously the most competitive race and the least popular race. Cabrera's total number of votes would not merit him the lead in any other race in either league. In fact, in most races Cabrera's vote total wouldn't put him in the top three of the standings.
Cabrera is the only Tiger who appears in the voting updates so far. Players like Alex Avila, and J.D. Martinez do not have enough votes to hit the top five and top 15 of their position groups respectively. Pitchers are not voted on by the fans so Justin Verlander and Michael Fulmer for example will not show up in this or future updates.