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Los Angeles Angels designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. are the leading vote-getters in their respective leagues in MLB’s first update for the 2023 All-Star Game voting.
MLB Communications @MLB_PR
Ronald Acuña Jr. of the @Braves & Shohei Ohtani of the @Angels are leading their respective leagues in the first balloting update for the 2023 ASG. The Scotts MLB All-Star Ballot is available now at https://t.co/QeTzbefggW, all 30 Club sites, the MLB App and the MLB Ballpark App. pic.twitter.com/DJFvIN5qGw
The Braves (Acuña, Sean Murphy and Orlando Arcia), Los Angeles Dodgers (Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez) and Toronto Blue Jays (Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Matt Chapman and Bo Bichette) are all tied with the most team representatives.
The American League includes a pair of tight battles in the fan ballot so far.
Guerrero’s 545,976 votes lead all AL first basemen, but the Tampa Bay Rays’ Yandy Díaz is hot on his heels with 533,179 votes. The gap between Chapman (475,322) and the Texas Rangers’ Josh Jung (470,836) is even closer at third base.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the Tampa Bay Rays don’t have a single player leading his position despite owning the best record (48-20) in baseball.
Shortstop Wander Franco has a .299/.360/.486 slash line and 22 stolen bases, and he’s first in WAR (3.3) among position players on FanGraphs. Still, he only has 226,629 votes and sits a distant third behind Bichette.
The Rays’ general approach to team-building has served them well but can make it tough for their top talent to attain proper individual recognition.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the star-laden San Diego Padres are falling short of expectations, and their absence of anybody at the top of the ballot reflects that.
Manny Machado, who finished runner-up in the 2022 NL Most Valuable Player voting, is fifth among third basemen. Xander Bogaerts is third at shortstop with just over half as many votes (209,144) as Arcia. Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. are fourth and sixth, respectively, in the outfield.
There’s still time for fans to have their say.
Phase 1 of the process will conclude on June 22. From there, the top two vote-getters at each position advance to the next stage, where the vote totals are reset. The full starters will be announced June 29.
The overall leading vote-getters in the AL and NL after Phase 1 will be automatically inserted into the starting lineup.
Acuña is sitting pretty comfortably with Freeman more than 300,000 votes behind. Ohtani’s status might be in slight jeopardy, on the other hand, since New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge trails him by fewer than 80,000 votes.
