It was just yesterday that we pointed out Minnesota Twins center fielder Byron Buxton was having a superstar season that no one is talking about, and what does Major League Baseball do?
Insult Buxton even further with the latest All-Star game ballot update.
As we touched on last week, Buxton was already facing an uphill climb in the voting for American League outfielders, but the latest update is just pure disrespect.
Buxton isn’t even among the Top 9 in voting for outfielders in the American League. Sure, the American League is littered with superstar outfielders, and of course, Aaron Judge is well on his way to winning the MVP award once again.
That is why it’s no surprise that Judge is the top vote getter in the outfield with over 2.6 million votes. Behind Judge is the most egregious of offenses.
We’re not talking about Tigers outfielder Riley Greene, behind Judge with just over 1.3 million votes, but we are talking about his teammate, Javier Baez.
Baez is currently third among all American League outfielders with just over 901,000 votes.
When the season started, there was no doubt that Baez’s comeback with the Tigers was one of the top storylines of the entire season.
However, since May 14, he’s come back down to earth in a significant way. In his last 112 plate appearances, Baez is slashing .257/.295/.429 with a 102 wRC+ and 4 home runs.
For context, in the same timeframe, Buxton is slashing .310/.416/.643 with a 193 wRC+ and 8 home runs. In other words, Baez has barely been an average offensive contributor for much of the last two months, while Buxton has been performing at an MVP level.
All-Star voters just disrespected Byron Buxton in the worst way
We’re not going to get mad at the fans; we get it, voting is a popularity contest, and as much as Twins fans may hate it, the Tigers have been the talk of baseball.
For that reason, Baez is going to get national attention, especially when you consider his superstar run with the Chicago Cubs.
The blame, you may ask, falls with the Twins.
The Twins, with their atrocious play in June, have quickly become an afterthought this season. Because of that, Buxton’s dominance is being ignored.
