BoS All-Stars Announced

The All-Star votes are in from all the owners of the Boys of Summer APBA Baseball League, they are as follows...

AMERICAN LEAGUE ALL-STAR TEAM

STARTERS

C - Buster Posey (SPAR)
1B - Jose Abreu (CORK)
2B - Dee Gordon (CHI)
3B - Kyle Seager (CORK)
SS - Alexei Ramirez (CORK)
OF1/RF - Jose Bautista (CORK)
OF2/CF - Andrew McCutchen (CHI)
OF3/LF - Carlos Gomez (FAIR)
DH - David Ortiz (CHI)

4 Players from Corktown Tamales will start for A.L. squad (they had 5 players total)

BENCH

C - Brian McCann (BRK)
1B - Paul Goldschmidt (FAIR)
2B - Neil Walker (SPAR)
3B - Nolan Arenado (CHI)
SS - Jose Reyes (BRK)
OF - Lorenzo Cain (SWAT)
OF - Charlie Blackmon (SWAT)
OF - Justin Upton (CORK)
DH - Victor Martinez (SWAT)

PITCHING

SP1 - Felix Hernandez (CHI)
SP2 - Jon Lester (SPAR)
SP3 - Zack Greinke (SWAT)
SP4 - Doug Fister (S.S.)
SP5 - Madison Bumgarner (FAIR)
SP6 - Garrett Richards (CHI)
RP1 - Dellin Betances (CHI)
RP2 - Huston Street (SPAR)
RP3 - Joaquin Benoit (SWAT)

The Other 3 spots were chose by the following... Since I like to make sure every team is represented, Buffalo still needed a player for the All-Star Game.

With the outcome of the votes, I felt Jordan Zimmermann was their best representation, which was close over the next guy, who happens to be from their team in Ian Kinsler as well. Matt Kemp happened to be tied in 7th in outfielders with A.J. Pollack, I chose Kemp, due to the fact that he had a vote as high as a 3rd place vote, which broke tie, and although Pollack was impressive in a part-time role, Kemp played full-time.

In the past, for the 3 final spots, I usually had the APBA Facebook Group guys vote on some nominees.

SP - Jordan Zimmermann (BUF)
2B - Ian Kinsler (BUF)
OF - Matt Kemp (BRK)

NATIONAL LEAGUE ALL-STAR TEAM

STARTERS
C - Jonathan Lucroy (SEA)
1B - Miguel Cabrera (TC)
2B - Robinson Cano (KBB)
3B - Adrian Beltre (URB)
SS - Troy Tulowitzki (POR)
OF1/LF - Michael Brantley (SEA)
OF2/CF - Mike Trout (POR)
OF3/RF - Corey Dickerson (POR)
DH - Carlos Santana (KBB)

Brantley and Trout were back & forth for the lead in OF votes, Brantley won by a single point in the voting system -- on the last ballot turned in, Brantley was a first-place vote (5 pts) while Trout was a second-place vote (3 pts), just edging him.

BENCH

C - Devin Mesoraco (TC)
1B - Freddie Freeman (POR)
2B - Jose Altuve (SEA)
3B/OF - Josh Harrison (TC)
SS - Erick Aybar (SD)
OF - Giancarlo Stanton (TC)
OF - Hunter Pence (TC)
OF - Starling Marte (HOL)
DH - Nelson Cruz (SD)

PITCHING

SP1 - Clayton Kershaw (KING)
SP2 - Corey Kluber (TC)
SP3 - Adam Wainwright (TC)
SP4 - Johnny Cueto (HOL)
SP5 - Chris Sale (KING)
SP6 - Julio Teheran (TC)
RP1 - Greg Holland (HOL)
RP2 - Wade Davis (TC)
RP3 - Jonathan Papelbon (URB)

A couple different notes here, Adrian Beltre scored all 1st-place votes for his position, I believe he may have done that the previous two All-Star season votes as well, which is pretty damn impressive... If there is an early forecast on a first-ballot BoS Hall-of-Famer to be, Beltre is making a ridiculous case with all of his awards & stats to show for it.

Speaking of 100% 1st-place votes, the other two BoS players to do that were from the American League in Buster Posey and Jose Abreu -- You heard correctly, Clayton Kershaw actually received a second-place vote; Another reason I love everyone's takes on the ballots, creates really weird results sometimes.

The other result, resulted in... I believe a record 9 All-Stars selected for my Traverse City Panthers. I do know that South Shore and Portland sent a ton of players, and at worst TC at least tied the record if not set it, will have to do research -- I do know 10 have not been selected from one team.

T.C. has 3 starting pitchers going, had maybe the best bullpen (not known as Chicago at least - Dellin did enough on his own, plus company), while the team led BoS in batting -- It could be argued that they may been one of (if not) the best on paper, but that's why we have a post-season -- It simply was not our time, but it gives a perspective how good that team is, I believe. It also gives a perspective, how good that Urbana and Portland team was, and the entire National League for that matter; Plus it was just icing on the cake that Brad finally broke through for his title.

For those final 3 N.L. spots, I really felt Kelvin Herrera should have been represented out of all of those (he shattered the old Holds record by a long shot), but since T.C. already has 9 players, I ruled no more T.C. players added; Brian Dozier had a pretty good case as well.

The N.L. DH vote was close, and I felt J.D. Martinez should be added for Holland. The other two spots went to OF-Jayson Werth from Portland and (since no Herrera), the next guy in RP votes was Jeurys Familia (I picked Familia over Edwin Encarnacion actually -- who would have been a 3rd 1B behind Cabrera and Freeman, who both will play significant parts in the game. So I chose his teammate instead.

DH/OF - J.D. Martinez (HOL)
OF - Jayson Werth (POR)
RP - Jeurys Familia (SD)