Which D-Backs need the most support from the fans?
Introduction
In a bid to age myself somewhat, I have very fond memories of going to ballgames where the team had kiosks set up all over the stadium with paper All-Star ballots. To my memory, they often had punchouts for each player’s name along with areas for write-ins. But those ballots didn’t include the players’ statistics or much context other than their nominated positions, their team, and their league. I also don’t have any memory of there being any kind of verification whatsoever so the ballot boxes would be regularly stuffed with completed ballots. That lack of verification certainly aided my father-in-law and his brother’s (nearly) singlehanded effort to elevate Bucky Dent to an unlikely all-star game. Amazingly, those paper ballots lasted all the way until 2015 when MLB unsurprisingly elected to go to an all-digital model like the rest of the major sports leagues.
That change, along with the ability of even the most casual fans to access every baseball statistic they could ever want, has severely decreased the effect of a player’s popularity and has even somewhat swamped the big-city bias. In turn, those changes have made the fan selections that much more accurate – even enough to impress some of the professional baseball writers. The D-Backs are well-represented on the first ballot update that was released earlier this week. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some snubs from our favorite baseball team either. So, since there’s still a full week left of voting in the first phase of balloting that will help determine which players advance to the second phase and which become automatic starters, I thought it would be helpful to highlight a couple D-Backs players that could use an additional boost of voting from the fans.
Geraldo Perdomo
In the complete ballot standings we saw in the first update, there was a real drop off in vote totals for NL shorstops between number five Dansby Swanson (~307,000) and Perdomo at number six (~95,000). I was admittedly somewhat pessimistic about the extension he inked before this season given his lackluster .235/.327/.330 slash line in his first 400 big league games entering the year. But instead he has become an integral member of the lineup and a human highlight reel at shortstop, which has allowed Ketel Marte to more effectively slide over to second base. This is one of the few instances in which the bigger names (Francisco Lindor and Mookie Betts especially) are leading the pack in votes while failing to lead in some key statistical categories. Betts is especially having a down year – at least by his lofty standards with a 112 OPS+ – while Lindor has been more of a bat-first player this year. But Perdomo has been right in the thick of some of the best shortstops in the National League with his bat. He’s walked more than he’s struckout and he could very easily have a 20-20 season. I suspect at least part of his lackluster vote totals can be chalked up to poor performance at an inopportune time. Since the beginning of May, he’s slashing just .255/.341/.399 and it’s no better if you extend that window out to the last time his OPS was over .900 in the middle of April as that yields a .241/.332/.385 line. He’ll need to return to his early-season form if he hopes to make any more converts in voter’s minds.
Eugenio Suarez
The story of Suarez’s offensive resurgence last season may go down in Diamondbacks’ lore as one of the best in-season turnarounds in franchise history. Now in his final year under contract with the team and facing increasing trade speculation, Suarez would love nothing more than to demonstrate his skillset again to potential trade suitors and the rest of the league ahead of free agency this offseason. And unlike Perdomo who may already have been buried in the vote totals, Suarez has an outside chance of at least advancing to the second round. He’s only trailing the second-place Max Muncy by ~120,000 votes with his ~290,000 compared to Muncy’s ~416,000. Even better, he’s got a solid case for inclusion too as his 21 homers leads qualified third basemen by a wide margin and his .517 SLG has him ahead of Manny Machado by a whisker. When you compare the three of them head-to-head, it’s not surprising to see how the voting has fared and Suarez has done himself few favors by continuing to grade out as a below-average defender. But in a showcase like the All-Star Game, what could be more fun than someone who already has three grand slams and had a game with four homers?