I thought this was impossible, and I was wrong.
Major League Baseball released the first batch of All-Star voting results on Monday afternoon and, amazingly, there is an Oriole among the leading vote-getters. It’s true. Ryan O’Hearn is the leader for American League designated hitters, leading Yankee DH Ben Rice by about 120,000 votes in the early days of balloting.
There is a very easy explanation for this surprise. The guy who has probably actually received the most votes as an American League designated hitter, Rafael Devers, was just traded from Boston to San Francisco. He won’t be an AL All-Star. His votes must have been discarded. I make this guess based on the fact that O’Hearn’s total of 353,029 votes is the lowest of any position leader, with the next-lowest total being Gleyber Torres of the Tigers with 535,079 votes for second base.
Still: It’s cool for O’Hearn. He was the next-best DH in the AL after Devers and now with Devers out of there, O’Hearn probably should be the starter at that position. We’ll see if subsequent rounds of balloting leave him in the top spot.
As a reminder, a few years ago, MLB introduced a multi-phase gimmick into the voting process, so what is happening between now and June 26 is a narrowing down of the field to two players at each position (six for the outfield). A second phase of voting will then determine the starter each position between those who made the cut from the first round. O’Hearn seems likely to make it to the second phase, then will have to beat Rice or whoever comes in second in the first round. Players who are not elected by fans as the starter could still be chosen as reserves.
The only other Oriole who is anywhere close to making it out of the first phase, as of the first release of voting numbers, is Jackson Holliday. The O’s second baseman is second to Torres, with 449,093 votes recorded to date. That’s only just ahead of Houston’s Jose Altuve, who has 446,787 votes up to this point. Altuve is a nine-time All-Star.
Other Orioles and where they appeared in this batch of voting:
- Adley Rutschman – 7th place among catchers, 167,122 votes (trails 2nd place by 203,338)
- Gunnar Henderson, 7th place among shortstops, 157,389 votes (trails 2nd by 362,595)
- Ryan Mountcastle, 7th place among first basemen, 89,322 votes (trails 2nd by 525,404)
- Ramón Urías, 9th place among third basemen, 112,116 votes (trails 2nd by 285,465)
- Cedric Mullins, 20th place among outfielders, 123,572 votes (trails 6th by 293,286)