Vladimir Guerrero Jr. leads Ben Rice by 500K votes despite hitting .279. The latest American League All-Star voting update shows that the fan frustration refuses to die down. In fact, the same debate that started a week ago hasn’t just resurfaced. It has grown in multitude. And at the center of that debate is one MLB team: the Toronto Blue Jays.

Arguably. Because the Blue Jays’ 1B, apart from batting at .279 with a .735 OPS, has hit only 4 home runs this season. Ben Rice, for the New York Yankees, has a 1.004 OPS while hitting 22 HRs so far. But more than 1.4 million votes have put Guerrero over Rice, who has only managed 882,772 votes till Monday. 

When the first official update arrived on June 15, Guerrero was just over 603K votes while Rice was 170 shy of 510K. Guerrero’s votes more than doubled in a week, and the trend extends across the entire infield. The entire infield and DH category has Toronto players either at the top or in the second position. 

Ernie Clemente has over 2 million votes. The Blue Jays’ 2B has a .751 OPS. Ezequiel Duran (Texas Rangers) has a .750, Jose Altuve (Houston Astros) managed .707, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. (Yankees) has a .719 OPS. Yet, these three together have fewer than three-fourths of the votes of Clemente. 

Blue Jays catcher Alejandro Kirk has played just 11 games this season. He has a .200 batting average and a .598 OPS. Yet he is 2nd in his category. Meanwhile, Dillon Dinger from the Detroit Tigers earned fewer votes despite 18 HRs and 55 RBIs this season. 

It’s not just about first base. Almost the entire voting system has fueled huge fan frustration. But this isn’t new. In fact, the baseball community goes through this almost every year. And the fact that MLB allows a person to vote 5 times a day makes it entirely illogical for many fans. 

Call for banning fan votes rises as Guerrero and Jays take tremendous lead

Fans are largely unhappy with Guerrero leading the 1B in AL. They believe there are far more deserving candidates for the position, with one fan pointing out, “Kurtz being that low is crazy.”

Nick Kurtz is 4th in the same category. The A’s first baseman is batting at .290. He has 19 homers and managed 61 RBIs this season. Munetaka Murakami is between him and Rice. The Chicago White Sox infielder recorded 20 HRs and a .938 OPS. 

All of them have better stats than Vladimir Guerrero Jr. And the same goes for almost all the other Blue Jays candidates. 

“Dingler & McGonigle both being robbed bc Blue Jays got a bot farm for voting,” read one comment. 

Just like his teammate, the Tigers’ SS Kevin McGonigle is 3rd in his category. He is batting at .283 and has managed an .820 OPS. Andrés Giménez, the Toronto shortstop, is just above him with a .232 AVG and .648 OPS. 

It’s hard not to notice the pattern. Especially when so many Blue Jays are leading the categories. 

“The entire blue jays infield is top 2 in each position, fan voting got to go. Ben rice should be the starter for first base no question,” wrote a fan. 

Another social media user reflected the same frustration, saying, “Blue jays in top two in all 6 non-OF positions. Reminds me of Royals fans stuffing ballot box for all their guys year after winning World Series.”

MLB experienced one of the worst examples of ballot stuffing in 2015. The Kansas City Royals fans managed to put 7 of their players in leading positions in their respective categories. 

The Royals lost the 2014 World Series to San Francisco but won in 2015. Now, ironically, the Blue Jays suffered a World Series defeat against the Los Angeles Dodgers last year. It would be a wild guess to say that Toronto fans are trying to indicate something here. 

“An entire country is improperly swaying voting results,” another fan offered some bitter truth. 

The Toronto Blue Jays are the only team from Canada, and the remaining 29 are US-based. This means the other clubs represent cities or states, while the Jays represent an entire nation. 

But there’s nothing wrong with that. However, the problem here is that the US fans are divided among too many teams, and the Canadians are unified by one. That’s what makes the huge difference in fan voting. 

Even then, most baseball lovers would have accepted such passion and loyalty, unless there were more deserving players from other teams. That’s what the people are protesting and calling to ban fan voting. Besides, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and his team are 3rd in their own division with a below .500 record. 

So far, there hasn’t been any improvement since last week’s update. And Phase 1 will end on June 25. Many fans are waiting for the June 29 to July 2 window so they can attempt to overturn some of the snubbing during phase 2.