Hamilton and Jeter Lead AL All-Star Voting

Just like last year, expect to see a lot of Rangers and Yankees take the field to start this season’s mid-summer classic.  We’re just a couple weeks away from the all-star break, and if the voting were to end right now, we’d have 4 Rangers (Hamilton, Napoli, Kinsler and Beltre) and 2 Yankees (Jeter and Granderson) in the starting lineup, comprising 2/3rds of the batting order.  Hamilton’s 5.4 million votes are 2 million ahead of the next highest AL vote-getter (Jeter at 3.4).  The three non-Texas/non-New York positions are currently led by Prince Fielder, Jose Bautista, and David Ortiz.  Do the fans have it right so far?
 
Of course not, but they aren’t too far off in comparison to other years.  The Yankees and Rangers own the best records in the American League and Hamilton and Jeter should undoubtedly be shoe-in’s, while Kinsler who leads the majors in runs is also the right choice to start.  But apart from this three-some and Ortiz, there’s a bit of wiggle-room.
 

 
Granderson and Bautista both make sense as all-star starters with 21 and 22 home runs respectively, but I’d like to see Adam Jones take over one of those spots before the voting ends – he’s currently about 40,000 votes behind Bautista and 900,000 behind Granderson.  I’d personally rather see him unseat Granderson because Bautista has a greater responsibility in a less power-heavy lineup, but that may be a long shot.  Neither Granderson nor Bautista are hitting over .255 while Jones is sitting at .306 and carrying this year’s surprising Orioles team with 18 homers, 47 runs, and 39 RBIs.
 
My Starters: Hamilton, Jones and Bautista
   

Cano’s only about 15,000 votes behind Kinsler and it could make for an interesting race, but Kinsler’s been more consistently helpful to his team as one of the league’s top leadoff hitters, while Jeter’s been the fuel for one of the top team’s in the majors.
 
My Starters: Kinsler and Jeter