Major League Baseball made a massive overhaul to the fan voting system for the 2019 All-Star Game this year, breaking it up into two stages.
The first stage, called “The Primary,” was similar to the old voting system, and ended June 21. Instead of picking the top overall vote-getter by position and league to form the National League and American League lineups, however, the top three at each position (top nine for the outfield) advanced to “The Starters Election” which takes place from June 26-27.
Only two Los Angeles Dodgers players made it past The Primary into The Starters Election: Cody Bellinger and Joc Pederson. They will compete in a field of nine NL outfielders for three All-Star starting spots.
The Starters Election begins at 9:00 a.m. PT on Wednesday and runs until 1:00 p.m. on Thursday. The results of the election will be unveiled during an ESPN special at 4:00 p.m. on June 27, while the rest of the All-Star Game rosters will be unveiled on ESPN at 2:30 p.m. on June 30.
During this phase of voting, fans can only vote once on MLB websites using a typical ballot. However, fans can also vote for specific players up to 17 times on Google. Vote totals completely reset, so everyone who advanced past The Primary will have a blank slate.
The outfield elections will work similar to the old system, as the top three vote-getters in each league will form a starting outfield.
Bellinger led all NL players in the primary with over 3.68 million votes. Under the previous format, he would have been named an outfield starter along with Christian Yellich of the Milwaukee Brewers, who got 3.64 million votes, and Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Atlanta Braves, who received 2.55 million.
Not only are Yellich and Acuña leading their teams to great starts in 2019, but they are also the defending NL MVP and Rookie of the Year, respectively.
Other starters election candidates in the NL outfield include Acuña’s Braves teammate Nick Markakis and Chicago Cubs trio Albert Almora, Jason Heyward and Kyle Schwarber. Pederson secured the ninth and final spot in the election with 961,515 primary votes.
Unlike the new model for the players, the process of selecting the managers for the All-Star Game remains the same. After going against each other in the 2018 World Series, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts leads the NL against Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora’s AL team.
The 2019 MLB All-Star game will be held at Progressive Field in Cleveland on July 9. First pitch is scheduled for 4:30 p.m.
