Troy Glaus Shafted In All-Star Voting

Written by Colin on June 22, 2010 – 5:01 pm

The latest All-Star vote totals are out and despite Jason Heyward, Brian McCann and Martin Prado solidly in second place for their positions, Troy Glaus is getting shafted. Glaus is in fourth place at first base behind Albert Pujols, Ryan Howard, and Prince Fielder.

Now I know Glaus only turned it on starting in May, but he’s been absolutely ON FIRE since then. But then again, All-Star voting is a popularity contest and popularity is rarely based on pure stats. Chipper Jones is a prime example this – he’s third in third base voting behind Placido Palanco and David Wright, and we know that Chipper doesn’t deserve to be considered the third best third baseman in the league this year. The numbers just aren’t there.

Unfortunately for Glaus, he’s on the shafted end of the popularity contest.

Here’s some data to consider. To this point in the season, the top 4 vote-getters have amassed the following stats:

  AVG OBP SLG OPS H R HR RBI
Pujols .306 .426 .548 .974 76 39 15 50
Howard .290 .345 .506 .850 78 42 14 51
Fielder .260 .397 .506 .850 66 41 13 27
Glaus .280 .380 .494 .874 68 38 14 55

However, if we remove Glaus’s April slump, his numbers are as follows (I’ve linearly replaced his April results with his current pace for H, R, HR, RBI):

  AVG OBP SLG OPS H R HR RBI
Glaus .316 .415 .579 .994 77 43 17 65

So a look at overall performance on the season and Glaus seems to be right around where he should be, though I can argue that his numbers are better than Prince Fielder’s and comparable to Ryan Howard’s.  However, in the past 8 weeks of baseball, Troy Glaus edges out Howard as the best NL first baseman

What Braves should be on the All-Star team? My votes are on McCann, Prado, Glaus, Heyward, Hudson and Hanson, with Wagner on the cusp. I doubt we’ll see Hanson on the team, but Glaus might make it as a reserve. The guy deserves (in my opinion) to be at least second ranked at first base. He’s been the hottest first baseman (or player) in the game over the past couple months. But unfortunately for Glaus, the All-Star game (at least when it comes to position players) is really about who plays for the big market teams with active fans.


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