I'm preaching to the choir on this one, but just in case someone comes to this site and isn't sure they should vote for Joey Votto for the All-Star Game, here's a little more evidence. I've heard some uneducated arguments against Votto saying that the All-Star Game isn't just about having one good half of a season. As you all know, Votto has had much more than one good half of baseball. In fact, over the last 3 seasons, he's been one of the 5 best first basemen in all of baseball:
Votto has benefited from playing in a good hitter's park, but even when you adjust for the park, his offensive numbers still stand in front of a couple of the top 1B, most notably Ryan Howard:
These numbers are the batting runs tracked on FanGraphs' Value page. If this doesn't put into perspective how great Albert Pujols is, then I don't know what to say. There are a lot of great hitting 1B, and over the last 3 years, he's been at least 50% better offensively than any of those other 1B. Wow.
Where Votto looks really good is defensively - surprisingly enough. I wouldn't start or end a fight with these numbers, but I figured I'd post this just to make the picture a little more complete. For what it's worth, these numbers are UZR and Votto doesn't look as good using other defensive metrics:
Clearly Joey Votto is deserving of being an All-Star, even if you think that All-Stars need more than one good year on their resume. Make sure you get out and vote Votto.