While the All-Star Game is still a sore subject amongst some Braves fans, it should still be a time of celebration as the Braves have multiple players that have worthy ASG candidacies including Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley, Ozzie Albies, and, to some extent, Freddie Freeman. Despite the team’s struggles, this is still a team with some good players on it.
All-Star Game balloting started recently and from the looks of things, the Braves could be well-represented in the game.
Acuña has garnered the most votes among NL players. Albies leads NL second basemen and Freeman ranks second at first base. Riley is a deserving All-Star, but he sits far behind in the third base race https://t.co/XjkuQ4tOfT
— Mark Bowman (@mlbbowman) June 14, 2021
Ronald Acuna Jr. getting a ton of votes (he leads the National League as of now) is hardly a surprise as he has put up one of the better seasons in all of baseball so far and has a ton of name recognition. Ozzie Albies’ brilliant play over the last month or so has him in line to start his first All-Star Game in what is a surprisingly deep race at second base and Freddie Freeman currently sits in second place amongst first basemen despite putting up a first two months of the season that is below the lofty standards he has set for himself in previous years.
The biggest bummer so far in the voting is that Austin Riley currently sits in just 5th place amongst third basemen despite being significantly better than most of the guys ahead of him on the ballot and it appears that he is getting punished a bit for lack of name recognition. Kris Bryant currently leads the voting in the category which would make sense given how good he has been at the plate....except that Bryant has only played 16 games at third this year and probably should be listed as an outfielder. Braves fans are going to have to turn out in a big way in the closing days of the balloting to get Austin into the game.
Also, big shout out to William Contreras who, despite being thrown into a big league starting position suddenly with the injury to Travis d’Arnaud, currently sits in fifth amongst NL catchers.