In a first-of-its-kind 2 stage process, the Atlanta Braves – and their fans – took advantage of the process and got 2 of their players elected as All-Star Game starters.
When the 2019 MLB All-Star game gets underway in Cleveland on Tuesday, July 9, a pair of Atlanta Braves‘ teammates will take the field in the first inning.
Freddie Freeman will handle the first base duties and second-year star Ronald Acuna Jr. will likely get the nod for center field.
Both bested their competition to be among the top vote-getters in this ‘starters election’ that took place over the past couple of days.
Freeman, who was the NL’s vote leader last year, barely out-paced Pirate break-out candidate Josh Bell this time around.
Freeman garnered 583,712 votes and out-polled (tolled?) Bell by less than 17,000 ballots. Cubs’ 1st baseman Anthony Rizzo was a distant 3rd.
In the outfield, there was a clear “tiering” of the voting results:
- Christian Yelich: 930,577 votes
- Cody Bellinger: 875,017
- Ronald Acuna Jr.: 627,769
All 3 of three outfielders will be the NL’s starters. Charlie Blackmon of the Rockies was 4th with almost 104,000 votes short of Acuna.
Those that Didn’t Make it
In that outfield vote, Nick Markakis finished in the 5th position, close to 181,000 votes behind Blackmon. It was fairly evident that fan favor was fully behind those top 3 outfield winners.
At shortstop, Dansby Swanson was looking at a tough pair of competitors: Javy Baez of the Cubs won this going away.
Trevor Story was a distant second, beating out Swanson by over 25,000 votes. He is currently on the Injured List, though is expected to be available to the Rockies soon.
At 3rd base, Braves (and Blue Jays?) fans managed to out-poll the Cubs here as Josh Donaldson finished above Kris Bryant… but both were swamped (as expected) by Nolan Arenado‘s 734,170 votes… over double the second-place Donaldson’s tally.
Ozzie Albies made it a close contest at 2nd base, falling to Ketel Marte by almost 70,000 votes (549,959 to 480,110). Mike Moustakas was well back in 3rd.
Finally, our most recent villain – Willson Contreras – gets the start at catcher, beating out Brian McCann by a large margin (640K to 431K). Yasmani Grandal was well behind in 3rd.
The Winners
So in the end, here’s how the NL will line up with their starters in Cleveland:
- Contreras
- Freeman
- Marte
- Baez
- Arenado
- Yelich
- Acuna
- Bellinger
It’s a solid group – plenty of offense there, for sure, but decent defenders as well (for the most part). So 2 Braves and 2 Cubs among the winners despite each club having 7 finalists apiece.
The All-Star reserves will likely be announced next week, and there’s a fair likelihood that these voting results could influence some of the remaining selections.
Certainly Braves manager Brian Snitker might put his own whispers into the ear of All-Star manager Dave Roberts since Snit will have a chance to sit next to Roberts at the game as a member of the coaching staff.