Star-stricken: Outstanding Orioles overlooked in MLB fan voting

Jordan Westburg has been in Baltimore for all of five days, so perhaps it only underscores the positive impressions his new teammates have made on him that the 24-year-old infielder will beat the All-Star drum on their behalf.

He pointed to the locker next to his, which belongs to outfielder Austin Hays. He looked a few lockers down at Adley Rutschman’s empty chair. Both of them, and others, are deserving of a place on the All-Star roster that will be fully unveiled Sunday.

“If you look around the clubhouse,” Westburg said, “there are guys who deserve to be on that team; there are guys who could be on that team in the future.”

Westburg, of course, paid closer attention to what was going on with the Orioles than the average baseball fan across the country. That much was apparent when Phase 2 of All-Star voting ended Thursday with Rutschman narrowly missing out on a starting place on the American League team to Jonah Heim, one of four Texas Rangers players to receive that distinction.

Heim is deserving of his place in the All-Star Game on July 11 in Seattle. The backstop has a better average (.279) and on-base-plus-slugging percentage (.800) than Rutschman, although narrowly. But the All-Star voting process draws shrugs from many of the players because of the rules that may have robbed Rutschman of a starting spot.

Rutschman received over 320,000 more votes than Heim during Phase 1 of All-Star voting. But the votes reset for Phase 2 and Heim wound up with 52% of the head-to-head votes against Rutschman. Major League Baseball didn’t release official voting tallies for the second phase, so it’s not clear whether Rutschman finished with more overall votes than Heim if the first and second phases were combined.

But, even beyond Rutschman, the lack of any other Orioles in Phase 2 consideration at all underlines the issues with a fan voting system playing such a large role in voting.

Hays finished 14th in voting among American League outfielders, even though his .314 average entering Friday leads all American League outfielders and is third in the American League at large. His .853 OPS is seventh in the American League.

Fans overlooked Hays in the first round of All-Star voting. It raised eyebrows around the clubhouse.

“There are some flaws that I think are in this voting process,” Westburg said. “There’s a lot of intangibles that All-Star votings don’t include, which is a shame, but again it’s part of it.”

Rutschman and Hays — along with pitchers Félix Bautista, Tyler Wells and Yennier Cano — still have a chance to make the All-Star roster. It comes down to a player vote, and the commissioner may also make selections as needed.

Baltimore, which entered Friday’s series opener against the Minnesota Twins with the fourth-best record in baseball, could have more than the minimum one All-Star representative for the first time since 2016, when five players were selected.

They’ll require the respect of their peers to do it after fans largely bypassed one of baseball’s best teams. Right-hander Kyle Gibson, though, has a possible solution for the future.

“If I could choose, I would probably have writers, players, front office and even scouts [vote],” Gibson said. “Have them pick who’s in the game, because they watch everybody play. And then have the fans pick the starters. I’m fine with that. I think fans should be involved, because it’s a game for them to see the best players, but I do think there are a lot of really good players who don’t win the popularity vote because either their market’s not as big or something like that.”

That, in Gibson’s mind, would allow for a better representation of the most deserving players. And fans still would have their voices heard regarding starters.

“There’s so much career-wise, too,” Gibson said. “For guys going into arbitration — and this gets to the business side — guys going through that, it’s a big deal. When you earn that ability to be in an All-Star Game and you can use that throughout your career, that does make a big difference. And, for a guy who just doesn’t have as big of a market, to miss out on that, that’s kind of unfortunate.”

Baltimore entered Friday with a better winning percentage than Texas, but part of the reason the Rangers have four starters is the media market is larger.

The Dallas-Fort Worth area is the fifth-largest market in the United States. Baltimore is the 28th. Plus, the Rangers have sure-fire star power in Corey Seager, who surely offers a trickle-down effect on his teammates in contention.

We can’t control certain things, and we can’t control fan voting,” manager Brandon Hyde said. “We’ve been on a few Peacock games. We haven’t been on a ton of national games. So I don’t know what fans around the country, how much they’ve watched us play.”

Still, Rutschman — with his .268 average and .789 OPS — has a strong chance at making the All-Star team. So, too, could Hays, particularly with outfielder Aaron Judge requiring an injury replacement. Bautista has 21 saves, Cano holds a 1.14 ERA and Wells leads baseball with the fewest walks and hits per inning (0.885).

The options are there. Now, they just need to make it.

andy.kostka@thebaltimorebanner.com