Major League Baseball (MLB) home run king Aaron Judge (32, New York Yankees) overwhelmed rival Shohei Ohtani (30, LA Dodgers) not only in home runs but also in popularity.
The MLB Secretariat announced the results of the interim tally of MLB All-Star voting on the 18th (Korea Standard Time). The best player was Judge. Judge, who was registered as an outfielder in the American League, received 1,366,315 votes, the largest number of votes in both leagues.
Judge is considered the best player in this season. He recorded 26 home runs in the season on the 17th, ranking first in all home runs in the MLB. His pace is steeper than when he set a new AL record with 62 home runs in 2022 and won the MVP award.
His popularity is similar to his performance. After growing up to become a star of his team’s flagship franchise by winning the Rookie of the Year award, Judge became a free agent after the end of the 2022 season, but remained with the Yankees as he signed a nine-year, 360 million-dollar contract, the highest ever by an FA. After staying in the team, Judge became the Yankees captain and was recognized as a “legend” of his team, succeeding retired Derek Jeter. As he is the star of the league’s best big market club and the league’s best star, it was natural for Judge to win overwhelming votes.
The strength of the Yankees was also confirmed by Juan Soto’s votes. After coming to the Yankees in a trade this season, Soto received 1.25 million votes, ranking second only to Judge. Soto was also an MVP candidate from the beginning of the season, but Judge’s recent performance has pushed the spotlight back. However, he proved his performance this season by earning only one million votes in the AL.
Four of them garnered more than 1 million votes in the National League. However, none of them hit Judge and Soto. Bryce Harper of the Philadelphia Phillies, who was nominated as a first baseman, topped the league with 1,115,562 votes.
The Dodgers, known as the most popular club by dominating the No. 1 spot in the league’s spectatorship, failed to beat Harper. Mookie Betts, who was certain to be absent for a long time after suffering a broken left hand the previous day, garnered 1,023,690 votes as a shortstop candidate. Philadelphia third baseman Alec Bohm threatened Betts with 1,012,174 votes.
Ohtani only garnered lower-than-expected votes. Having played for the Los Angeles Angels until last season and recorded two MVP titles and one MVP title during his three seasons, Ohtani moved to the Dodgers this season, breaking Judge’s FA record of 700 million dollars.
However, due to sluggish performance in recent months, his performance has failed to meet expectations. He is focusing on batters, and is hitting his 19th homerun with multiple homeruns on the 17th. He has yet to gain an upper hand in the competition with not only Judge but also NL hitters such as Marcel Ozuna (Atlanta Braves) and Harper.
The same holds true with the vote. Ohtani narrowly exceeded 1 million by garnering 1 million 2,377 votes, but was more than 100,000 votes ahead of Harper.
Meanwhile, Kim Ha-sung, the only Korean major leaguer to be nominated for an All-Star, ranks sixth in the NL shortstop category (114,657 votes). There is a slim chance that he will come from behind by a gap of 909,033 votes with Betts, who is the No. 1 player in this category. Since his debut in the big league in 2021, Kim has emerged as a starting member in defense in 2022 and 2023, but has yet to play in the All-Star game.
The MLB All-Star voting will be divided into the first and second rounds. The top two players (six outfielders) will be selected from each position in the first round, and the second round will be held to determine the starting players for the All-Star Game. The two players who garnered the most votes in the two major leagues in the first round will be selected to play in the All-Star Game without a final. Unlike the KBO League, pitchers are selected through team voting and secretariat recommendations without fan voting.
Meanwhile, this year’s All-Star Game will be held on the 17th of next month at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, home to last year’s World Series winner Texas Rangers.토토사이트 순위