Cincinnati Reds finding no support in All Star voting

If the 31-38 overall record wasn’t enough evidence that this, to date, has been yet another ho-hum season for the Cincinnati Reds, the most recent All Star voting should pretty well cement that for you. MLB has opted for a two-tiered voting process this year, first with a ‘Primary’ round that’s akin to how voting for starters has gone in the past, and that will later be followed by a final round consisting of the top three vote-getters by position from the primary round.

The latest update on the primary round of voting was released today, and as The Athletic’s C. Trent Rosecrans relayed, there hasn’t exactly been a ton of ballot-stuffing by Reds fans and supporters.

No one but Jose Iglesias even gets a vote tally mentioned, which I suppose can’t come as too much of a surprise.

Perhaps the two leading candidates to even begin to challenge their competition in the voting when it first began were Derek Dietrich and Eugenio Suarez, yet both have stumbled through miserable stretches for the month of June. In 13 games since Dietrich’s brilliant 3-dinger game, he’s hit just .167/.271/.214 across 49 PA, which isn’t exactly the kind of standout performance to draw eyes to a last place team. Meanwhile, Suarez has hit just .155/.279/.224 over his last 16 games (68 PA), and that’s on top of being lumped in with a star-studded 3B crowd featuring the likes of Nolan Arenado, Kris Bryant, Manny Machado, and many others.

Also, it’s worth at least pointing out that Dietrich’s versatility might well we hampering his support at 2B, a spot where he’s only logged 35 games so far all season and has hit just .200/.314/.460 in 119 PA there, with 7 dingers. So while his 131 OPS+ is the best on the Reds by far, it’s hard to really put that into context in this format.

As for Jose Iglesias, it’s at least a reasonable occurrence that he’s the most supported choice to be an All Star among Reds position players. His otherworldly glovework has been every bit as advertised at SS, and he’s even producing a 90 OPS+, his best since being an All Star in 2015 with the Detroit Tigers. He trails Dietrich for the team lead in both bWAR and fWAR, of course, and checks in at just 18th in all baseball by fWAR among SS.

Obviously, if you’ve been following the Reds all season, you’re well aware that their strength has been their pitching staff, and it’s quite likely that we’ll see only Cincinnati arms representing the team in the All Star Game. Luis Castillo seems to be a virtual lock, while Amir Garrett has done everything in his power to be named as a lefty reliever. Pitchers, of course, get named by the managing staff of the NL squad in the run-up to the actual game instead of via voting, so we’ll have to wait and see how that plays out.