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We’re coming up on Major League Baseball’s All-Star break. Earlier this week the starters for the All-Star game as voted by the fans were announced along with the reserves and the pitchers for the game. Now any time there’s something like and All-Star game there are players that should’ve been on the teams that don’t make it and that’s the case this season.

I’ve seen some very long list from some very credible baseball reporters of players that should be playing in this year’s All-Star game but aren’t.

This situation is very much like the NCAA basketball tournament the field for that just like the rosters for the All-Star game have been expanded, but even with that you’ll still be able to find players or in the tournaments case teams that should’ve been in, but there just wasn’t room for.

Now with Major League Baseball or any other sport that has a fan voting for their Al-Star game you’re going to end up with players winning the fan vote that probably don’t belong in the game and that appears to be the case this year as well.

Let’s just take a look at a couple of starters that might not be All-Star’s if it wasn’t for the fans voting them in.

Giancarlo Stanton of the New York Yankees would be the first guy I would ask about. Yes, Stanton does have 22 home runs, but he’s hitting .237 and has struck out 82 times in the 72 games that he’s played in. Stanton is one of six Yankees to make the American League All-Star team, but let’s face it if he wasn’t playing in New York would he be on this team?

In the National League William Contreras of the Atlanta Braves moved into the starting spot at Designated Hitter when Bryce Harper of the Philadelphia Phillies was injured and unable to play in the game. Harper beat out Contreras in the final fan voting to be the National League’s starter at Designated Hitter, but since he’s out injured the spot goes to the other person in the final voting and that was Contreras.

Right off the bat with Contreras is the fact that the Braves have played 89 games this season and Contreras has appeared in only 43 of them. that means he’s an All-Star who hasn’t even appeared in 50% of his team’s games. It’s not like with his limited playing time that Contreras is putting up out of these world numbers either. Contreras is hitting .273 with 11 home runs and 22 RBI’s. Are those really Al-Star numbers?

Now the Yankees have been the best team in baseball this season and the Braves are the defending World Series champions, so it’s no surprise that they ended up with the most All-Stars out of any teams. I mentioned that the Yankees led the American League with six All-Stars while the Braves led the National League with five All-Star selections.

I still think that you can question the selection of Stanton and Contreras, but if these are the players that the fans want to see then those are the players that should be in the game.

It’s also a nice story that this will be the first time since 2003 that brothers will be All-Stars. The last set of brothers to make an All-Star team where Brett and Aaron Boone in 2003. Now the last brothers to be starters in the All-Star game was in 1992 when Sandy and Roberto Alomar started for the American League. The Alomar’s where also the last pair of brothers to play for the same All-Star team in 1998 when they were both named to the American League squad.

as always, I’d like to turn the floor over to you. Who was your biggest All-Star snub? Feel free to have more than one if you choose to. I’ve seen multiple names come up in this category, so please feel free to name more than one player.

I actually have a second question for you this week. Will you be watching the Major League Baseball All-Star game? I feel it’s the closest to the actual game that it represents out of all the major sports, but that doesn’t mean people will watch or does it.

Don’t forget that you can still find me on Twitter @Burketime