SOTO WINS ALL-STAR OUTFIELD VOTE, JOINING JUDGE

Last Thursday, Aaron Judge punched his ticket to the 2024 MLB All-Star Game by earning more votes than anyone in the league. That allowed him to skip Phase 2 of the voting, and only one other American League player managed to eclipse the three-million vote plateau: teammate Juan Soto. But Soto still had to go through Phase 2 against three other players to win his starting spot.

With such a strong Phase 1 turnout for Soto, however, it was almost a fait accompli. No. 22 will indeed be starting alongside No. 99 in the AL outfield at Globe Life Field in Texas. Soto won the highest share of the Phase 2 AL outfield vote at 31 percent, easily outpacing Baltimore’s Anthony Santander (26%) and Houston’s Kyle Tucker (16%). He also beat Steven Kwan (28%), though the Cleveland batting leader will join Judge and Soto in the Junior Circuit starting nine anyway.

Here’s the full rundown of AL starters:

C Adley Rutschman (Orioles)

1B Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Blue Jays)

2B Jose Altuve (Astros)

3B José Ramírez (Guardians)

SS Gunnar Henderson (Orioles)

OF Aaron Judge (Yankees)

OF Juan Soto (Yankees)

OF Steven Kwan (Guardians)

DH Yordan Alvarez (Astros)

And here’s who’s starting in the Senior Circuit:

C William Contreras (Brewers)

1B Bryce Harper (Phillies)

2B Ketel Marte (Diamondbacks)

3B Alec Bohm (Phillies)

SS Trea Turner (Phillies)

OF TBD (announcement forthcoming)

OF TBD (announcement forthcoming)

OF TBD (announcement forthcoming)

DH Shohei Ohtani (Dodgers)

The rest of the (pre-injury replacement) AL and NL All-Star rosters will be revealed during ESPN’s All-Star Selection Show at 5:30pm ET on Sunday. Who else do you think will make the AL squad from the Yankees? Luis Gil? Clay Holmes? Anthony Volpe, if the players and managers voted before his numbers sank into mediocrity? We’ll find out this weekend.

2024-07-03T23:41:22Z dg43tfdfdgfd