All-Star voting update: Contreras, Yelich in line to start

Major League Baseball released the first round of results from fan voting for the All-Star Game today, and three players from the Brewers feature prominently.

If current voting trends hold, two Brewers are in line to start the game, which is notable in that the Brewers have only had one All-Star starter in the last 10 years (Christian Yelich in 2019). William Contreras holds a healthy lead over J.T. Realmuto of the Phillies (who is currently injured) and Will Smith of the Dodgers for starting catcher. At the same time, Yelich is second among National League outfielders, behind Jurickson Profar. Joey Ortiz is also in the mix, as he is just behind Manny Machado for second at third base (though Alec Bohm holds what is certainly an insurmountable lead at the position).

Notably absent is Brice Turang, who is all the way down at sixth among NL second basemen, despite leading the National League in steals and ranking near the top among second basemen in multiple other categories, including second in WAR, behind Ketel Marte (who is just a few thousand votes behind Luis Arraez for first place in the early returns). Turang currently has about 144,000 votes, roughly 450,000 less than Arraez and Marte.

“Phase One” of fan voting ends on June 27, which will be followed by “Phase Two,” when the top two voters at each position (and the top six outfielders) advance to a second round of voting from June 27-July 3.

Let’s get Ortiz above Machado and into that second spot, huh?