Boston Red Sox: 3 players you must vote for on All-Star ballot
These three Boston Red Sox players need your All-Star vote
It’s that time of year again when baseball fans get to have their voices heard. Ballots for the 2021 MLB All-Star game have been released and fans can cast their vote on their team’s official site or through Google. This is your opportunity to help send your favorite Boston Red Sox players to Denver for the Midsummer Classic.
The Red Sox are locked in a tight division race with the Tampa Bay Rays while the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays remain dangerous clubs lurking behind them in the standings. It seems fairly safe to say that even if the Red Sox aren’t in first place by the time Phase 1 of the voting process ends on June 24, they should be firmly in the playoff hunt.
Being a contender warrants having multiple All-Stars and the Red Sox have no shortage of candidates. A case can be made for several Red Sox pitchers but unfortunately, they aren’t on the ballot. Players and the Commissioner’s office will select the pitching staffs and position player reserves so for now, we’ll focus on what the fans can control – the position player starters.
There are a few players on the brink of deserving votes. Alex Verdugo is having a solid season. Not quite All-Star worthy but he’s been good enough that a vote for him wouldn’t be considered outlandish. Christian Vazquez is having a down season but catcher is a thin position and he has a better track record than most of his peers. Hunter Renfroe’s numbers are watered-down by a miserable start but his scorching month of May opened some eyes and he’s providing excellent defense.
These players shouldn’t start the All-Star game but a spot among the finalists at their respective positions is reasonable.
The Red Sox do have a trio of position players who have a strong case for being All-Star starters and undoubtedly deserve to advance to the final ballot. These players need your vote!
Red Sox third baseman Rafael Devers
Rafael Devers is poised for his first All-Star appearance and has a strong case for being named a starter. While his defense remains questionable, fans are watching this exhibition game to see some offense and Raffy can hit with the best of them.
His .279 batting average is a bit underwhelming, the result of a recent mysterious slump where he struggled against the fastball, but his .350 OBP remains strong and his .942 OPS would be a career-high.
Devers leads the American League with 18 doubles and 46 RBI while ranking third with 15 home runs. He’s fifth in the AL with a .392 wOBA and 2.1 WAR, per FanGraphs. He leads AL third basemen in the former category and trails only Chicago’s Yoan Moncada in the latter.
Third base offers some stiff competition with Moncada (2.6 fWAR), Jose Ramirez (1.9 fWAR) and Alex Bregman (1.7 fWAR) all having great seasons. Devers has been the best of them offensively, which typically is what draws the attention of the fans, and undoubtedly deserves a spot even if he doesn’t get voted in as a starter.
A slow start to the 2019 season cost Devers an All-Star selection and his absence seems criminal in retrospect considering where his production ended up that season. It’s time to rectify that mistake by sending Raffy Big Scoops to his first All-Star game.
Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts
We should be able to lock in Xander Bogaerts for the third All-Star appearance of his career. Not only is he the obvious choice to start at shortstop for the AL squad, he’s arguably the front-runner for the MVP.
Bogaerts is third in the league with a .315 batting average, sixth with a .390 wOBA and seventh with a .912 OPS. He ranks sixth with 64 hits and 15 doubles while adding 10 home runs. Bogaerts is fourth in the league with 2.5 fWAR, which leads all shortstops.
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Bogaerts recently battled a frustrating slump, along with most of the Red Sox offense, but he snapped an 0-for-24 skid in the series finale in Houston on Thursday and now has consecutive multi-hit games to prove he’s back on track.
He enters the day with 203 at-bats, matching the exact total he tallied during last year’s shortened season. Bogaerts has either exceeded or come close to his totals from last season in essentially every category and he’s on pace to finish with similar results to his 2019 campaign when he was an All-Star, a Silver Slugger and finished fifth on the MVP ballot.
Working in his favor is that Marcus Semien, the former Oakland A’s shortstop who is having an excellent year in his own right, has played mostly second base for the Toronto Blue Jays so that’s where he now appears on the ballot. The closest Bogaerts has to competition is Carlos Correa but it’s hard to see any Astros players generating much fan support outside of Houston.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Bo Bichette and Tim Anderson warrant some consideration but none of them have matched what Bogaerts has done. They also lack the track record and name recognition of the Red Sox star shortstop. I would be surprising if Bogaerts doesn’t run away with the vote at this position.
Red Sox designated hitter J.D. Martinez
The nightmare of the 2020 season is a distant memory for J.D. Martinez. He had a full offseason to work out the kinks in his mechanics and he’s returned with a vengeance to prove he’s still among the game’s elite hitters.
Martinez is tied for the league-lead with 67 hits. He’s second with a .321 batting average, .958 OPS and .407 wOBA, trailing only Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in all three categories. The injured Mike Trout would have a slight lead if he had enough plate appearances to qualify but it’s unclear if he’ll make it back from a calf strain in time for the All-Star Game.
He piled up homers in a hurry in April but Martinez has been going through a bit of a power outage lately with only two home runs in his last 25 games. He still has a respectable 12 for the season to go along with 39 RBI.
A lack of defensive value tends to limit the WAR category for a DH but Martinez is still ninth in the league and the best at his position with 2.0 fWAR.
The race for the DH spot should be an interesting battle since there might only be room for one. Martinez made the team as a reserve DH in 2019 when he lost the fan vote but obviously deserved to be there. The AL didn’t carry a backup DH in 2018.
Shohei Ohtani is certain to receive plenty of fan support. If he doesn’t win the starting spot, the two-way star could make the team as a pitcher, increasing the odds for the rest of the field. Austin Meadows pales in comparison to the offensive production of Martinez but he’s been heating up lately and the first-place Rays warrant their fair share of representation. Nelson Cruz is having a down year by his lofty standards but he’s always in the mix when discussing the league’s best DH. Giancarlo Stanton doesn’t deserve to be on anyone’s ballot but those Yankee pinstripes will draw the attention from casual fans in addition to those in the Bronx.
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This is a competition that Martinez should easily win but nothing is ever certain when the decision is a popularity contest. If the fans rob Martinez of the starting spot, it will be interesting to see if the AL chooses to carry multiple DH’s in order to squeeze him in. They better find a way because Martinez not making the team would be a travesty after how hard he’s worked to return to form. Let’s make sure there’s no doubt about his place on this year’s All-Star team by getting out there to vote!