The voters definitely make mistakes but I'm always surprised at how good most of the choices are.

Ever since they moved voting to online and got rid of in-ballpark voting, it seems to reflect who is actually good that year, rather than who is famous (save for that one time Royals fans voted like crazy).

When I was a kid I always punched holes for the best AL team and then I would try and do a terrible NL team so the AL could win. I grew up in the late 70s and early 80s so that didn't work great.

Wow, Judge reall is the face of baseball. Or Yanks fans are intellectually honest but we all know that's not true. Judge at 1.5 M votes, next highest Yank I think is Stanton at 500 k and even Rizzo is only around 350 k. Jeff McNeil is polling as well as Stanton for example. Tatis doing very well for a guy with 0 PAs.

And apparently Alejandro Kirk is the face of Canadian baseball. That's a lot of votes for a guy nobody had heard of in March. (Granted, not much competition.)

Here's hoping Willson gets the start and they pick William as a backup.

Here's hoping Willson gets the start

I just got an email from the Cubs advising me to "keep voting for Cubs for the All-Star game." I was like, "Plural??"

Needs more love for Tommy Edman…

So brother All-Stars in the same year? I assume the DiMaggios have done it; the Alous did it (1968). Surprised that Bob Forsch never made an AS team. The Boones did it in 2003 although different leagues (counts IMO). I am kinda shocked to find that Ken Brett made the 74 team but George was just starting out. Ramon made the 1990 team years before Pedro. There must other candidates I'm blanking on.

Perrys (Perries?) in 1970.

Not a fan of the internet voting for reasons mentioned in post 5. I get bombarded by posts to vote for Cardinals etc.

At the same time, I'm hoping for Goldy, Edman, Arenado, Helsey to make it for my team, add in Mikolas and Wainwright and it seems like a lot, but I think potentially legit.

#7 - The Alomars are an obvious one, doing it 6 times (1990-1992, 1996-1998), 5 of which came in the same league.

Hard to believe Sandy and his 13.7 career WAR made 6 AS teams. I know WAR wasn't a thing back then, but still...

Surprised they didn't do it:

- Dizzy and Daffy Dean. Paul (Daffy) never was an All Star.

- Paul and Lloyd Waner. Paul made the AS team 4 of the previous 5 seasons, but not in 1938 when Lloyd had his only appearance.

- Phil and Joe Niekro. Despite pitching 342 innings, winning 21 games, and racking up 7.4 pitching WAR, Phil didn't make the AS team in 1979 when Joe made his only appearance.

Carlos and Lee May in 1969 and 1971.

Hard to believe Sandy and his 13.7 career WAR made 6 AS teams.

The 1990s weren't a golden era for AL catchers. He competed against Old Pudge in 1990-92, Young Pudge in 1996-98, and bat-first players with defensive deficiencies such as Brian Harper, Chris Hoiles, and Mickey Tettleton.

Sandy had a great reputation for handling a pitching staff, and his Indians always seemed to extract value out of elderly retreads and middling talents.

How quickly we forget Terry Steinbach!

Yep, the Alomars were obvious.

The Sandy Jr phenomenon is hard to explain. I don't really remember why but he had immediate buzz. He won RoY and started the AS game in the same season -- that's very rare (although I don't know if he was voted in or a replacement). It's not like he was putting up historic numbers early or anything -- 294 BA but only 3 HR through the end of May.

Then the reputation just stuck. He started the next year too but he'd been horrible AND mised a month from mid-May to mid-June. He then got hurt again and missed Aug and Sept. So the next year we were all "it was the injury, the real Sandy will be back" ... but a 212 BA and 601 OPS on May 1 when he got hurt again and missed 2 weeks. He was slightly worse throughout the rest of May/June ... and started again!

That was in the years before Cle was good, when they were last in attendance.

Then he didn't make the team for 3 years and I thought maybe the latter appearances might be due to Cle getting good, selling out every game and reaching 2nd in attendance (Clevaland! Second!) But those years Pudge II was the starter -- still Alomar might have had good vote totals so maybe that was it. Sandy still had that rep that "this is gonna be the year we're gonna see the real Sandy" ... or at least that's how I remember it. And in 1997 it actually happened and he deserved the AS selection. That was also the year Cle hosted the game so he was surely gonna be on the team anyway ... and that doesn't explain 96 or 98.

He'd probably never have a shot these days except maybe in that first and very likely in the 5th year. In his 2nd AS year, which he missed half of, Cle was below replacement and worst in the AL at C overall. In 92 just regular bad; 96 and 98 back near replacement.

The big surprise is Alejandro Kirk currently in third place in the AL in the voting (behind Judge and Trout).

That is a STRONG voting block from Canada to get him there, as I can't imagine most of the other AL fans have even heard about him.

I mean, he's the obvious choice statistically, but I'm still surprised.

Having their basic stats when you vote is a real help if you haven't been following that closely. I hadn't realized how good a season Kirk had been having, and none of the other catchers in the AL were even particularly close.

OTOH, I voted for Pete Alonso, even if I admit that Goldschmidt has been better.

Certain rookies got a lot of hype in the late '80s when card collecting really took off. Sandy Jr. and Gregg Jefferies are the ones that stick out in my mind.

Edit: and of course Griffey Jr.

Certain rookies got a lot of hype in the late '80s when card collecting really took off.

I was going to say the same thing, that cards had a lot to do with it. That, plus "two star brothers with a former MLB player father" was an irresistible and thus persistent narrative hook.

Joe and Dom were ASG teammates 6 times, tying the Alomars. Vince was an AS only in 1943 and 44 when Joe and Dom were in the army.

The big surprise is Alejandro Kirk currently in third place in the AL in the voting (behind Judge and Trout). That is a STRONG voting block from Canada to get him there, as I can't imagine most of the other AL fans have even heard about him.

Never underestimate the strength of the short fat guy demographic.

Kirk is a lot of fun to watch play. I enjoy voting for him.

As to Sandy Alomar Jr - I remember the massive hype (I still have probably a couple dozen of his rookie card around here) and how everyone loved his arm - back then that was #1 for catchers by a mile (probably due to the Rickey/Raines/Coleman era of the 80's).

The votes from Middle Earth really pushed Alejandro over the top...

Other brother AS combos I found:

Mort and Walker Cooper 3 times (1942, 1943, 1946)

Rick and Wes Ferrell twice (1933, 1937)

Dixie and Harry Walker twice (1943, 1947)

#16-17-22: I agree it's the availability of stats. I mean Kirk has more votes than Vlad while nobody else on the Jays is doing particularly well in the voting (Bichette in a scramble). Ohtani is far behind Alvarez at DH but Altuve is the only other Astro doing well (and not doing as well as Alvarez) -- Ohtani barely has more votes than Taylor Ward who nobody had heard of until they saw his stats on the AS ballot, certainly not a guy with a voting contingent. Or if there is a big Angels voting contingent then nobody else is voting Ohtani.

So plenty of people outside Canada are voting Kirk, not Salvador Perez. Plenty of people outside Houston are voting Alvarez, not Ohtani.

I guess without ballpark voting that you lose a lot of the casual fan vote. Now you have to care enough to take a small extra step to vote and that's not the really casual fans. Then there's the group that's just there to vote for one or two specific players so makes sense they might just go by the stats on everybody else. I haven't checked but I suspect that most of the positions where there's a big lead are the ones where the stats are obvious with short-season stats trumping a good career.

Or if there is a big Angels voting contingent then nobody else is voting Ohtani.

Well if you are voting for the starting DH, Alvarez is a no-brainer. It's not hard to figure out. If the vote was for best baseball player then it would be Ohtani.

The challenge with AS game voting is you kind of have three blocs

1. People who think it's about electing the guys with the best stats at the time
2. People who think it's about voting for the stars/faces of the game, no matter the stats (so, you should vote for guys like Pujols, Griffey, Ripken, et al, even at the tail end of their careers when they don't meet the criteria in #1.)
3. People who vote for players who play for their favorite team.

None of these reasons are explicitly wrong. I think it is good to reward guys having a great season. I think there are guys who are generational players who should go every year. And I think it makes total sense that fans, especially younger ones, just want to see their team's guys. If you're going to allow fans to vote, you basically are accepting that guys will be elected for reason 3 (and 2 as well)

The problem is, some people tend to get very locked into reason 1 as being the reason, and then all the lists of snubs, etc. flow from that.