Jim Leyland used to say it all the time.
Tigers fans, the team’s former manager often said, are among baseball’s most knowledgeable (along with St. Louis Cardinals fans).
Far be it for me to argue with a Hall of Fame skipper. I assume if you’re a Detroit Tigers fan, you also agree with Ol’ Skip.
So if Tigers fans truly are among baseball’s most knowledgeable, I shouldn’t have to tell them that rookie sensation Kevin McGonigle might miss out on his rightful spot in next month’s MLB All-Star Game.
(Tigers catcher Dillon Dingler also is being bamboozled. More on him in a bit.)
The reason McGonigle, Dingler and other deserving players are on the verge of missing out on next month’s MLB All-Star Game in Philadelphia is because Toronto − and maybe all of Canada − has given up on winning anything in hockey ever again and decided to stuff baseball’s ballot box like a tourtière on Boxing Day.
When MLB released the first voting update of Phase 1 on Monday, June 15, the Blue Jays had players among the top two vote-getters in six of seven position-player categories in the American League. When Phase 1 voting ends June 25, the top two advance to Phase 2 of voting, which determines the starting position players (with the exception of the Phase 1 overall leading vote-getter, who locks up a starting spot without needing Phase 2 votes).
That’s a lot of gobbledygook, but what’s important is that players like McGonigle and Dingler are trailing some laughably unqualified Blue Jays in voting. The most egregious might be Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who leads AL first baseman in votes, and the Jays’ Alejandro Kirk, who is second among catchers.
Guerrero is having an awful year. Before Tuesday, he had three homers, 27 RBIs, a .737 OPS and a 103 OPS-plus, where 100 is the league average.
Kirk’s stats are even more laughably ridiculous. He missed more than two months with a fractured thumb and had only played in seven games entering Tuesday, posting a .259 average, one homer and four RBIs in 27 at-bats.
The only reason I’m not as outraged for Dingler is because he’s in fourth place, behind Baltimore’s Adley Rutschman who has comparable stats and is deserving of an All-Star nod.
There are many AL players on the ballot who should have a beef with Jays fans flooding the vote for their players. But the one that bothers me most is Jays shortstop Andrés Giménez getting 354,651 votes to open in second place − 88,412 votes ahead of McGonigle, who has 266,239 votes.
It bothers me because McGonigle is having an outstanding season that has made him the odds-on favorite to win AL Rookie of the Year. And don’t forget, he skipped Triple-A entirely. He’s an electric player who’s fun to watch in the field or at the plate.
And the stats aren’t even close between him and Giménez. Baseball Reference’s “versus finder” lets us stack their stats this season side-by-side − better number gets a green box. And sure enough, there’s enough green on McGonigle’s side to cover the Green Monster; McGonigle leads Giménez − by a lot − in every meaningful metric, with the exception of homers and RBIs. And even there, Giménez entered Tuesday with only one more dinger and five more RBIs.
Remember OPS+? McGonigle is at 125 − league average is 100, and anything above or below is the percent better than the league. So, yeah, McGonigle has hit 25% better than the league average. Gimenez, meanwhile, is at 68, which is not only far below average, but also the worst among any of the AL’s top two vote-getters.
If all that wasn’t bad enough for McGonigle, it gets worse. This year’s All-Star Game will be played July 14 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia − less than 10 miles from Aldan, Pennsylvania, the the Philly suburb in which McGonigle grew up. What do you think it would mean to him to play in his first All-Star Game in his hometown (and perhaps the only one there in his career)?
Put another way: What do you think it would mean to him to miss out on what will likely be a one-in-a-lifetime experience because of a poorly constructed system?
I’m not sure what MLB is going for, besides creating rage bait, with a system that not only allows fans to vote five times a day, but also encourages them to do so. It’s also a system that rewards teams located in high-population cities and regions like New York and Los Angeles. Or, as we’re seeing, the entire country of Canada, which has turned its only remaining MLB team into a de facto national team.
So here’s what Tigers fans must do − and do quickly: Start voting for McGonigle before Phase 1 voting ends June 25. Vote early. Vote often. Send McGonigle back home to play among the All-Stars, where he clearly belongs.
And prove Jim Leyland right. Vote for McGonigle and show everyone how knowledgeable you are about baseball, even when it uses a replacement-level system to determine which players deserve recognition as the game’s best.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on X @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers fans need to stuff MLB All-Star ballot box for Kevin McGonigle
Reporting by Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Carlos Monarrez, Detroit Free Press | USA TODAY Network
