Call it another sign of baseball’s KC comeback: Royals looking flush with All-Stars

Maybe this is about Google Fiber. That’s as good an explanation as any.

Maybe some IT guy at Garmin has a Ned Yost jersey and an ultra-fast Internet connection at home and figured out a way to stuff the ballot box of baseball’s first all-cyber All-Star vote.

Because — and we’re all friends here, right? — that would make more sense than Alex Rios (eight games played this year) being ahead of Hanley Ramirez (12 home runs) in voting. It would make more sense than Rios being ahead of stars like Jose Bautista.

Someone’s burning up bandwidth here.

The New Royals are so much different than The Old Royals in so many ways. A source of civic pride, rather than dark humor.

The Old Royals inspired their manager to say things like, “I’ll never say it can’t get worse.”

The New Royals inspire their manager to say things like, “There’s nothing traditional about our lineup, but we’re American League champions.”

The New Royals inspire their fans to take over Wrigley Field for a weekend series. The Old Royals inspired their fans to throw the remote control.

But this is next-level stuff.

Major League Baseball released its second update of All-Star voting on Monday and the results remain, well, jaw-dropping. The Royals have picked up a lot of fans from their playoff run and hot start to this season, but there are members of players’ families who wouldn’t be this overwhelming in their support.

Old Royals: Ken Harvey and Mark Redman are All-Stars because of baseball’s everybody-gets-a-trophy rule.

New Royals: more players currently being voted in than the rest of the American League combined.

The Royals have been (rightfully) dismissed from the national baseball discussion for so long that nobody should begrudge a market correction here, and in the spirit of All-Star voting — it’s who fans want to see, and not necessarily who’s most deserving — the Royals have a lot to like.

Salvador Perez is by now widely regarded as the league’s best catcher, and even if his offensive numbers aren’t as good as some others (Oakland’s Stephen Vogt, in particular) it is not surprising that Perez is winning the vote. What is surprising is that he leads all players, and has more votes than the next three catchers on the list combined.

Lorenzo Cain is probably the game’s best defensive outfielder, was the team’s breakout star during the postseason, and is hitting close to .300. He is a fine choice for the All-Star game. But considering he is not among the league’s top 10 outfielders in doubles, homers, RBIs or OPS, it is surprising that Mike Trout is the only guy within a half million votes.

It’s like this, literally, all over the board. Alcides Escobar (.685 OPS) leads Jose Iglesias (.822 OPS) by nearly a million votes. Eric Hosmer is gaining ground on Miguel Cabrera, Kendrys Morales is doing the same with Nelson Cruz (who leads the league with 18 homers), and Mike Moustakas is nearly a million (and counting) votes ahead of Josh Donaldson.

One of the more telling signs of a Royals takeover is with Omar Infante (.568 OPS) being not that far behind Jose Altuve (.761 OPS) in the voting for second base. Jason Kipnis is hitting .340 with power and has, basically, a third of Infante’s votes.

Of course, before a single vote was cast, the Royals were guaranteed an All-Star in manager Ned Yost, and the voting trends could ease the scrutiny on his own selections. Because if the votes hold, who could criticize him for adding, say, Hosmer and Wade Davis, bringing the Royals’ total up to seven?

The way things stand at the moment, the Royals are remarkably close to a pace that would rekindle memories of a 58-year-old controversy. Back in 1957, Reds fans stuffed the ballot box so effectively that seven of the eight position players voted in were Reds. The only outsider to sneak in was Stan Musial.

Ford Frick, then the commissioner of baseball, was skeptical enough to replace Gus Bell and Wally Post in the starting lineup with Willie Mays and Hank Aaron. Frick was so frustrated he stripped fans of the vote the next year.

Records on such things are curiously hard to track down, but the 2001 Mariners, 2004 Yankees, and 2012 Rangers had eight All-Stars.

That may be the most in recent years, and it’s not at all hard to imagine the Royals getting eight. Besides the five vote leaders and Davis, there are credible cases for Hosmer and Morales to be reserves.

This is one more sign that the world has turned upside down. First came the Royals winning, then winning in the playoffs, and then a bizarre heel turn with all of the bench clearings in April.

Now the Royals find themselves in an out-of-body experience — dominating a fan popularity contest so completely that there are calls to combat the takeover.

It’s all so … so … well, so Yankees of them.

Royals fans have had an incredible rise. A year ago at this time, Moustakas was in the minors and the big-league team had just replaced its hitting coach (again). They are 103-66 since then, including the playoffs, and even now it feels somewhat strange to have to note that qualifier.

In and around Kansas City, we have seen record TV ratings and attendance figures so bloated that club officials have ripped up their preseason projections. But until now, that sort of fan passion was mostly a local story.

The secret is out, and making national headlines. Fans from Seattle to Miami must be doing double takes — “the Royals have how many votes?”

Kansas City has always been a place where that kind of recognition means a lot. Probably more than it should. Approval from others has always been celebrated here, and dismissal has always been combated, both with more vigor than necessary. So, yeah. The All-Star voting is going to be an enormous point of pride.

It’s just one more way the Royals are making up for a generation of letdown with a captivating run back toward the top of baseball.

This story was originally published June 1, 2015 at 6:18 PM with the headline "Call it another sign of baseball’s KC comeback: Royals looking flush with All-Stars."