All-Popularity Team...

The "All-Star Game" is fast approaching and according to the latest numbers the only Ray even close to making it into the MLB's annual popularity contest is Carlos Pena.

I'm fine with Pena being there, as he's played fabulous defense all year, but my complaint is this:
How on God's green earth is Akinori Iwamura not even on the list for second basemen?

Aki is playing flawless defense (not nearly-flawless, but truly flawless) and has had as hot a bat as anyone in the league over the last 6 to 8 weeks, as denoted by the fact that he (Aki) has the 4th most hits by an AL second baseman this season (only one hit behind Pedroia, who has played 4 more games). Couple that with the fact that Aki has exactly ZERO errors in 187 attempts as opposed to Pedroia (who leads the vote for 2B, by the way) who has 5 errors in 203 attempts and its easy to see where I'm going with this.








Still not convinced?

Try this on for size: Ian Kinsler is second in voting right now, he has... wait for it... 14 errors in 221 attempts and a fielding percentage of .965, which is third from worst in the AL!
Guess who has the best fielding percentage in the AL (or the entire league for that matter), you got it... Aki (1.000).

And don't even get me started about the fact that Willy Aybar is listed as the Rays possible representative at 3B instead of Longoria, who is playing the hot-corner as well as, or better than, anyone else in the league (yeah, that includes you A-Fraud)... Ridiculous!

I say whichever Ray gets onto the "All-Popular" team by default (as each team is guaranteed at least 1 player) should reject the offer to play, as a means of boycotting the stupidity that is the MLB All-Star game.

Unreal!