Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, who have combined to win five of the past eight Most Valuable Player awards, are lapping the rest of Major League Baseball in the first batch of All-Star Game balloting.
Judge, the New York Yankees' slugger who leads the majors in batting average (.378), on-base percentage (.473) and slugging percentage (.756) and shares the lead in homers (26), leads all players with 1,568,527 votes from fans.
Ohtani, who has amassed an MLB-best 73 runs to go with a .297 batting average, 25 homers and 11 steals, paces all National League players with 1,398,771 votes. The Los Angeles Dodgers' designated hitter is scheduled to pitch Monday night against the San Diego Padres — his first mound appearance since Aug. 23, 2023, when he was still with the Los Angeles Angels.
This year's All-Star Game balloting process features two stages of fan voting. The current stage runs through June 26. At that point, the top two vote-getters at each position (including six outfielders) in each league will engage in a run-off to determine which players will start the July 15 game at the Atlanta Braves' Truist Field.
Here are the top American League vote-getters at each position:
Catcher: Seattle's Cal Raleigh (1,043,168) and Toronto's Alejandro Kirk (370,460); First base: New York's Paul Goldschmidt (667,258) and Toronto's Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (614,726); Second base: Detroit's Gleyber Torres (535,079) and Baltimore's Jackson Holliday (440,093); Shortstop: the Athletics' Jacob Wilson (562,696) and Kansas City's Bobby Witt Jr. (519,984); Third base: Cleveland's Jose Ramirez (968,754) and Boston's Alex Bregman (397,581).
The top six American League outfielders are Judge, Detroit's Riley Greene (675,070), Los Angeles' Mike Trout
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