Freeman, Albies, Markakis in line for starting All-Star Game gigs per latest voting update

It’s Monday, so I guess that means it’s time for an ever-present All-Star Game voting update for the National League. Here’s what the “races” look like at the moment.

Freddie Freeman, deservedly, is the leading individual vote-getter for the NL. This, at least, causes me no agita, because A) Freddie is awesome and B) he leads all NL position players in fWAR, with a sizable lead (3.6 to 2.9) over Lorenzo Cain (who somehow has a paltry 240k votes).

Ozzie Albies also had a sizable lead over Javier Baez at the keystone. While Albies still has more fWAR than Baez on the season despite his recent dip in performance, he’s still second by that metric to Scooter Gennett, who himself is only third in the balloting at second base. Cesar Hernandez currently has nearly the same fWAR as Albies (1.6 to 1.7), but is not even in the top five in terms of ballots cast.

Nick Markakis has vaulted into first place, and therefore a starting gig, as of this update, and is the NL’s second-place vote-getter. He’s tied for fourth in NL outfielder fWAR with former Brave Matt Kemp, with his 2.2 trailing Cain (2.9), Brandon Nimmo (2.4), and A.J. Pollock (2.3 in half as many PAs).

Kurt Suzuki has also pulled into third place in the catcher voting, and the gap here is much narrower than for the other positions. Suzuki is having himself another fine year (115 wRC+, seven homers, 1.0 fWAR so far), but what’s really notable here is that of course, Tyler Flowers wasn’t on the ballot and isn’t getting (m)any votes, even though he’s put up some fairly gaudy stats (1.0 fWAR, 136 wRC+ in 108 PAs) as well. Among all NL catchers, Flowers and Suzuki are sixth and seventh in fWAR, respectively. J.T. Realmuto actually leads this particular horserace, but isn’t anywhere on the ballot because no one cares about the Marlins, I guess.

Other Braves, including Dansby Swanson, Johan Camargo, Ronald Acuña Jr., and Ender Inciarte have also gotten a fair bit of votes, but don’t seem likely to leap up into the top spots. Brandon Crawford seems to have a chokehold on the shortstop voting, and Swanson isn’t too deserving given his full-season performance anyway. The same goes for Johan Camargo, who’s provided adequate but unspectacular production for the Braves at third. Ender Inciarte is struggling through an uncharacteristically brutal offensive season (77 wRC+), and Ronald Acuña Jr. is still on the shelf with an injury.

Stay tuned for further updates... or don’t, I guess, because All-Star voting is weird and frustrating.