2010 All Star Games Stuff

The midway results for the fan voting for the 2010 All Star Games were released yesterday. Not surprisingly Swallows’ players are not fairing well in the voting. The fan vote, which began on May 26 and will run through June 20, will select players to play in the All Star Games that will be held July 23 and 24. Fans can vote at the ballpark, select convenience stores, select bookstores, ticket Pia locations, through Japanese mobiles, and through the internet. The top vote getter in each position category, the top 3 for outfielders, will be selected to the team. The remaining roster spots get filled by a player’s vote, manager’s decision, and a final fan vote to select the final player. As far as I can tell there is no explicit participation rule mandating at least one player from each team be selected, like in MLB. However, given that each league only has 6 teams every team is inevitably represented.

Looking at the midway results, the top 5 vote getters are listed for each position, except for starting pitcher and outfield which lists 10. The only Swallows’ players that appear in the results are Ishikawa (10th place starting pitcher), Lim (5th place closer), Miyamoto (5th place third base), and Aoki (2nd place outfielder). If these results hold, Aoki will be elected to play in the All Star game. Since there are only 6 teams in the league, and write-in candidates are not very convenient, it’s probably a safe bet to assume that Swallows’ players occupy the 6th spot in many of the position categories.

Beyond Aoki, who probably doesn’t actually deserve an All Star spot right now, a Swallows starting pitcher or two will probably make the final roster in order to balance out the impact on each team’s roster. The only other player I can think of who might deserve a spot is Aikawa.

You can go vote for your favorite players for the NPB All Star Game at http://allstargame.npb.or.jp/ .