All-Star Game Voting: Blue Jays Update

With voting for the 2014 MLB All-Star game hitting the home stretch, two Blue Jays currently hold a starting spot in their respective positions. The voting ends July 3rd and the game will take place in beautiful Target Field in Minnesota on July 15th. If you haven't been voting, then you can go here and get started. The issue that most Blue Jays fans have with the current vote totals is that Edwin Encarnacion is 1,180,498 votes behind leader Nelson Cruz for the designated hitter spot. I'm not too sure what part of Cruz's game separates himself that much from the Blue Jays 1B/DH (click to enlarge):

via FanGraphs

Onward to more positive things, Melky Cabrera is up 162,394 votes on Yoenis Cespedes for the final outfield spot, which doesn't make much sense either if you consider defence even a little bit. Michael Brantley of the Indians and Adam Jones of the Orioles would also both be solid candidates for the third starter in the outfield, but apparently the fans like what Melky Cabrera has done so far this year.

The other Blue Jays player in a starting spot is obviously slugger Jose Bautista, who is actually leading all players with 3,665,208 votes which is especially impressive for a player who hones his craft north of the border. It will be Bautista's fifth All-Star Game in a row, assuming he can take the field in Minnesota after suffering his leg injury yesterday.

Elsewhere, Brett Lawrie is fifth place among American League third basemen behind the .274 OBP of Manny Machado who is somehow in third place. It isn't difficult to make a case that Lawrie has actually been the third most valuable Blue Jays position player (behind Bautista and Encarnacion) with Cabrera a close fourth. It doesn't matter much though, as Lawrie would be forced to miss the game with his broken finger sustained yesterday.

Of course once the starters are selected, the rest of the roster is filled out by a player vote and then the manager's selections before a final vote that decides the last player on each roster. As you'll recall from last season, Steve Delabar won the final vote for the American League, which he certainly won't repeat this year. Assuming Encarnacion doesn't get voted in by the fans, he will surely be selected by the players or the manager and make it three Blue Jays position players in the All-Star Game this year compared to two in 2013. On the pitching side it's almost a guarantee that Mark Buehrle will be one of the starting pitchers selected for the roster, which would be his fifth All-Star Game selection.

So get stuffing those ballot boxes if you want to see your Blue Jays in the All-Star or don't vote if you'd rather see them given a few days off to prepare themselves for the second half.