Back-to-back seasons without the playoffs, declining TV ratings and plummeting road attendance are signs that the New York Yankees have lost some luster.
However, another is about to arrive: For the first time in 16 years and the second time since 1992, it is all but certain that there will not be a Yankee in the starting lineup in the All-Star Game.
With Sunday’s deadline for fan balloting approaching, no Yankees player is higher than fourth at his position or within 6 million votes of a starting spot in the latest results, which were released on Monday.
Barring an injury replacement, the Yankees would be shut out of the starting lineup for the first time since a blitz in the final hours of voting pushed the Boston Red Sox’s Nomar Garciaparra past Derek Jeter in the 1999 All-Star Game at Fenway Park.
This season, it is not as if the Yankees are bereft of legitimate candidates.
Entering Monday, first baseman Mark Teixeira was tied for the American League lead with 53 runs batted in and had 18 home runs, but he was not among the top five vote-getters at first base (Major League Baseball released only the top 15 outfielders and the top five at each of the other positions).
Outfielder Brett Gardner was leading the league in runs scored and was tied for second in stolen bases, and his 2.9 wins above replacement was 11th in the league. However, Gardner was not listed among the top 15 vote-getters.
Catcher Brian McCann had 49 RBIs — four off the league lead entering Monday — and had thrown out 44 percent of runners trying to steal, second best in the league. McCann was fourth among catchers, trailing Kansas City’s Salvador Perez by nearly 10 million votes.
Then there is designated hitter Alex Rodriguez, whose best behavior and indispensable production have generated some goodwill among Yankees fans, but have not inspired them to vote.
Entering Monday, Rodriguez had hit 15 home runs and driven in 44 runs, but he was fifth among designated hitters, trailing another performance-enhancing drug scofflaw, the Seattle Mariners’ Nelson Cruz, by nearly 7 million votes.
Asked if the fans were doing their job, Gardner said: “I’m sure they are. The numbers are an accurate representation of the guys that the fans want to see in the game. If our fans haven’t voted as much as other fans, then maybe there’s good reason for that.”
Manager Joe Girardi suggested that, with so many recent acquisitions, fans had not embraced the players as they had once done with stalwarts such as Jeter, Robinson Cano, Jorge Posada and Rodriguez.
However, that did not explain why Gardner, who is having the best season of his career and is the Yankees’ only homegrown starter, had received fewer votes than his teammate, Carlos Beltran.
Or why the Yankee who had generated the most votes was Jacoby Ellsbury, who was 10th among outfielders with 2,690,291 votes despite having been on the disabled list for a month with a sprained right knee. It might be that Yankees followers — and baseball fans who vote — simply find this a mostly uninteresting team filled mainly with players they consider distasteful, like Rodriguez, or lacking charisma.
Girardi said it was hard for him to say why Rodriguez had not generated more votes.
“Sometimes you can’t figure out how the voting is going to go,” Girardi said.
However, Girardi expressed hope that a number of Yankees would be chosen for the game. He listed Rodriguez, Teixeira, Gardner and reliever Dellin Betances as having strong cases, and suggested that if Andrew Miller returned from the disabled list within a week he could be another candidate.
Reserves and pitchers are to be chosen by a combination of player ballots and the two managers, San Francisco’s Bruce Bochy for the National League and Kansas City’s Ned Yost for the AL. The final spot on each league’s 34-team roster is to be determined by fan balloting from a list of five candidates.
Since 1992, the Yankees have not had to count on their representative to be appointed. They have had a player start at every position exception for left field. In 2000, the Yankees had four All-Star starters.
However, this season it appears the Yankees will be shut out.
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