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When you were as bad at offense as the New York Mets were, any slight upgrade is not only noticeable, it is celebrated. 

That was the case when the team traded for Juan Uribe and Kelly Johnson, players with limited offensive abilities but certainly no worse than what it already ran out there every day. But the next upgrade was major, and it looks to have completely transformed the Mets from a meek attack to one with the potential to be good.

Yoenis Cespedes is the reason.

When the Mets traded for him just before Friday’s non-waiver trade deadline, the expectation was he would bring an intimidating, powerful presence to the middle of the team’s batting order. The 29-year-old outfielder started fulfilling those expectations Monday night in a blowout win over the Miami Marlins.

Cespedes went 3-for-5 with four RBI and two runs scored. All three of his hits were doubles, which tied a franchise record for the most in one game. It also gave him 31 doubles for the season, tying him with Cleveland Indians second baseman Jason Kipnis for the major league lead. Baseball blogger D.J. Short was impressed:

Three doubles for Cespedes tonight. Four RBI. Pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

— D.J. Short (@djshort) August 4, 2015

And those doubles were no bloop jobs down the lines. They were scorched shots, two of which barely missed being home runs and tested the durability of the outfield wall at Marlins Park. They also showed why the man should be one of the most feared hitters in the National League for the next two months—and possibly next three.

It was Cespedes’ breakout game for the Mets, who acquired him from the Detroit Tigers for two pitching prospects. In two games over the weekend, Cespedes was 1-for-7 with a walk and a run scored. The Mets won both, though, to sweep the rival Washington Nationals, and with Monday’s win and Washington’s loss they are now in first place by a game. 

Everyone knew it was just a matter of time before Cespedes showed his worth. He was a power hitter with developing offensive skills for the Tigers, posting his best season with a .293/.323/.506 slash line, 18 home runs and a 126 OPS+.

A player who can provide that kind of production can have a tremendous impact in a short amount of time. And the Mets will only benefit with Uribe, Travis d’Arnaud, Lucas Duda and possibly even David Wright—who could start playing rehab games next week—all healthy and productive surrounding Cespedes in the lineup.

“Now you’ve got a major league lineup from 1 through 8, and that hasn’t always been the case for the Mets,” ESPN’s Pedro Gomez said on the network Monday. “And that could very well be doom for the Washington Nationals.”

Cespedes captured New York fans’ hearts in 2013 when he put on a stunning show in the Home Run Derby at Citi Field. His max-effort swing and flair are perfect for this Mets team, which is in need of both power and a star who is not a pitcher. MLB.com’s Michael Baron was still stunned at the team’s acquisition:

I still can’t believe the #Mets got Cespedes. I said that already tonight.

— Michael Baron (@michaelgbaron) August 4, 2015

That could lead to the Mets and their fans having a passionate love affair with Cespedes. The problem is it is almost certain to end after the season.

Normally a team that acquires a player in a contract year has a shot to re-sign him. But that is not the case with the Mets and Cespedes because his contract stipulates he must be released within five days of the World Series if he has not been re-signed. And per collective bargaining rules, a team that releases a player is not allowed to sign him as a free agent until May 15. Also, the team cannot make him a qualifying offer and reap a compensatory draft pick, another stipulation of his contract, although because he was traded during the season, the Mets would not have been allowed to do that anyway.

That makes it virtually impossible for the Mets to keep Cespedes long-term, which is the reason he came so cheaply. It also means that come this fall and winter the Mets will be in the same position they were in last offseason and last week—in need of an impact outfield bat.

But that is a problem for later. For now the Mets have gone from a completely one-dimensional team to something close to a complete one overnight. A week ago this was a club totally reliant on great starting pitching. It is now one that has to be respected across the board.

Even former rival and Mets nemesis Chipper Jones feels the momentum building fast:

Cespedes might be a short-term fix for the Mets, but the time he does have with them looks like it will be entirely enjoyable.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

You could call it a comeback.

Except Clayton Kershaw never went anywhere. 

The best pitcher on the planet still is and has been for most of this season. It’s fair to say he hasn’t been as good as he was a year ago, but you would just barely be correct in that assessment.

The wins and the ERA are not where they were in 2014, but we should all be able to agree that advanced metrics have produced far better barometers to judge a pitcher. And when you look at those things, you realize Kershaw has been every bit the ace the Los Angeles Dodgers need him to be as they attempt to win a third consecutive National League West Championship this season.

He continued to prove so Saturday afternoon as he dominated the Washington Nationals in a 4-2 victory. Kershaw was a victim of the Dodgers’ new hesitation to let pitchers throw complete games—they have just three despite the rotation having the fourth-lowest ERA in the majors—so he reached eight shutout innings, striking out 14 and allowing three hits. He generated 30 swings and misses, tied for the most in a game in the last seven years, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

He used just 101 pitches to do so and lowered his ERA to 2.68, putting him in the league’s top 10.

Kershaw also struck out Bryce Harper, the likely National League MVP, three times as he posted a 90 Game Score, tied for the eighth-highest in the majors this season. For reference, Max Scherzer’s 16-strikeout, one-hit performance in Milwaukee last month was a 100, and his no-hitter was 97.

“He went out there like the MVP that he is,” Harper said after the game, per Jacob Emert of MLB.com. “He was pretty devastating. We tried to go in there and did what we could. I think he is the best pitcher in baseball.”

The prevailing belief when looking at Kershaw’s record and ERA over his first nine starts this year was that he was experiencing a big letdown from 2014, when he swept the league’s Cy Young and MVP Awards. His ERA had hit 4.32, he was 2-3 and the Dodgers were 4-5 in those games.

While Kershaw wasn’t as sharp early in the year, his results were just as much a product of some bad luck and bad breaks, which all pitchers experience. But at times, his frustration was palpable.

“I don’t feel like answering questions right now,” the normally media-friendly Kershaw told MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick after his May 4 start against Milwaukee, when he let a three-run lead in the sixth inning slip away. “I don’t want to analyze it right now. Thanks.”

Plenty of people analyzed those first nine starts for him, though. The conclusion was he was experiencing some bad luck—his .349 BABIP at the time would have been the worst of his career, as would his 65 percent strand rate—that could easily be amended.

Kershaw was still dominating. He was striking out hitters at a blistering rate, placing in the game’s top five in strikeouts per nine innings, strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio. His xFIP was a major league-best 2.15 going into that ninth start. 

In start No. 10, Kershaw turned the corner and hit the turbo booster. He went seven shutout innings and struck out 10 Atlanta Braves that night. From that start going into the All-Star break, Kershaw had a 1.53 ERA and his BABIP dropped to a more realistic (for him) .270.

Coming out of the break against the Nationals was more of the same, and Kershaw has been as good, even better, than he was in his marvelous 2014. Dodge Insider provided Kershaw’s stats:

Clayton Kershaw, 2014: 1.77 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 10.9 K/9 Clayton Kershaw, past 10 starts: 1.36 ERA, 0.78 WHIP, 12.5 K/9 http://t.co/NK5pIGBANN

— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) July 18, 2015

Also, with what he did Saturday in D.C., Kershaw became the first pitcher in 100 years with 10-plus strikeouts, no runs allowed and no walks in back-to-back starts, according to ESPN Stats & Info.

“It’s probably as close as I can remember his stuff being to his no-hitter day back last June,” catcher A.J. Ellis told Emert after the game, referencing Kershaw’s nearly perfect game last year.

In a season many thought to be a down one for Kershaw, he is proving that to be absolutely false while continuing to make history.

His FIP was 2.38 entering the game Saturday, third-lowest in the majors. His xFIP was 2.06, best in the majors. And his FanGraphs WAR was 3.7, fourth-best in the majors.

Kershaw might not have put up the prominent numbers early on, the kinds that please fans late to the party thrown by advanced metrics. But he was still quite good and one of the best in the business of throwing baseballs. A correction was bound to happen.

We are seeing that now, and it has made things painfully obvious to the rest of the sport and some of its best hitters, like Harper.

Clayton Kershaw is still the best pitcher in Major League Baseball.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

It’s official.

The second half of the Major League Baseball season is underway, or the post-All-Star break portion of the season for the technical types.

With this part of the year comes renewed excitement. The division races heat up through the non-waiver trade deadline this month, the waiver trade market in August and the stretch run in September. With at least one team in every division within striking distance of the leader, it makes the final two-plus months of the regular season ripe with intrigue.

Just how much is yet to be determined, but based on the standings, current roster construction and potential trade deadline moves, we can get a decent indication of which divisions will be the most thrilling in the second half.

Ranking them from having the least potential excitement to the most, here is where the six divisions fall.

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For so many, Alex Rodriguez is providing something close to their worst-case scenario. 

There is zero doubt many fans, media members and even those within Major League Baseball—uniformed or not—wanted A-Rod to fall flat on his face in 2015, to resemble the broken-down, washed-up player he was in 2012 and 2013. Only worse.

Ideally for those people irate at the performance-enhancing-drug scandals he has been named in, Rodriguez would have come off his yearlong suspension handed down by former commissioner Bud Selig and been a disaster for the New York Yankees. That would have appeased the masses.

Except A-Rod isn’t playing along. Instead, he’s doing all that his soon-to-be-40-year-old body is capable of to turn back the clock to his glory days. The effort continued Friday night when Rodriguez thumped a go-ahead home run in the seventh inning to push the Yankees to a 4-3 win over the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium.

That home run was Rodriguez’s 19th of the season, the most he’s had in a year since 2010 when he hit 30 and drove in 125. And aside from being an all-around offensive producer for the Bombers, he has also contributed with the timeliness of his hits.

He has three home runs in his last four games and has had hits in each of those four that gave the Yankees a lead.

Entering Friday’s game, A-Rod had hit two of his homers in high-leverage situations and had a .969 OPS in 34 plate appearances. Those numbers went up Friday, again putting him front and center in the Comeback Player of the Year discussion. Sportswriter Katie Sharp noted this stat:

A-Rod is the only Yankee this season to hit 2 go-ahead homers in the 7th inning or later (also May 1 vs Red Sox)

— Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) July 18, 2015

There are logical reasons for Rodriguez’s uptick since the last time we saw him in uniform. He is healthy, first and foremost. His hips are as mobile and pain-free as they can be at this point in his career, and that is allowing him to get to balls he was unable to in 2013 when his strikeout rate was nearly 24 percent, the highest it had been since his rookie season with the Mariners in 1995.

Considering Rodriguez is one of the greatest offensive players the sport has ever seen—doped up or not—you had to figure he had not forgotten how to hit an inside fastball. His body just wasn’t letting him. It was a case of health.

Where many believed, understandably, that at his age the imposed year off due to his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal would be too difficult to come back from, it ended up being a very long and beneficial rehab process.

“I think for me the time off benefited me, and I feel good, healthy, ready to go,” Rodriguez said, via Bob Nightengale of USA Today, during spring training. “It was the first time I had a chance to rest a full year in my career, and get a chance to train, versus rehab, so feeling good.”

With health now on his side, Rodriguez is producing at an elite level, making his exclusion from the American League All-Star roster ridiculous but predictable given his past transgressions and the disdain from a certain faction of his peers.

Rodriguez came out of the All-Star break with the seventh-highest wRC+ (148) in the league, according to FanGraphs. He also had a 147 adjusted OPS, which would be his highest mark since 2008 when it was 150 and he led the league with a .573 slugging percentage. 

This current resurgence also makes it reasonable to expect Rodriguez to keep this up beyond this year.

That would be a massive boost for the Yankees, a team that had to wonder whether Rodriguez’s sliding production and negative PR was worth keeping around at $61 million over the final three years of his contract (they’re on the hook for $40 million after this season). They pretty much neglected to promote his passing of Willie Mays on the all-time home run list, as well as his 3,000th hit this year.

But they cannot deny his worth at a time when the franchise no longer dominates the AL East like it did a decade ago. Rodriguez is one of the best players on the roster, and the way he has performed makes it realistic that he can be one of the league’s best designated hitters for the duration of his contract.

Rodriguez turns 40 in 10 days. That is an age when hitters who rely on power should morph into empty shells of their past selves. A-Rod seemed headed for that fate a couple of seasons ago.

Now, however, he is defying natural decline, and we can assume he is doing it clean, as it would surprise exactly nobody if it ever came out that Rodriguez was the most tested player in the game. Maybe he backslides in 2016 and looks every bit of his age in 2017.

But as of now, one of the best players the sport has ever witnessed is showing why that moniker is real. He has not forgotten how to hit. And the Yankees need every last drop of whatever he has left for as long as he can give it to them.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Predicting an exhibition is no easy task. 

There are too many outlying variables and factors to consider. While Major League Baseball’s is the only All-Star Game in which athletes play at or very near 100 percent effort—the sport does not really lend itself to playing at anything less—there are still remnants of an exhibition, such as playing as many players as possible or removing the best pitcher after a couple of innings so that he has virtually no impact on the outcome.

With all that said, no game is more fun to predict than this one, played at Cincinnati’s Great American Ball Park on Tuesday. The Futures Game is played Sunday, and the Home Run Derby happens Monday.

Rolling the events into one sphere so that the predictions spread across all three is even better. They allow for bold, fun and even absurd prognostications every year.

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The initial removal was discouraging.

The initial diagnosis was frightening.

The outlook for the Boston Red Sox is back to ugly.

Clay Buchholz, the Red Sox’s top pitcher during a season in which their pitching has been nearly nonexistent, was removed from Friday night’s start against the New York Yankees, the team his team is chasing in the American League East.

At the time, it was just more bad news for a Red Sox team that entered the contest four games below .500, a fortunate 5.5 games out of first place and doing everything to not live up to offseason expectations that had them in the postseason.

Minutes after Buchholz was removed, an early diagnosis was announced. For a pitcher, or anyone who has paid even mild attention to baseball trends in the past few years, it was the type that makes one shudder.

Buchholz has right elbow tightness. Not the diagnosis you probably wanted to hear.

— Ian Browne (@IanMBrowne) July 11, 2015

Manager John Farrell told reporters Buchholz was feeling “some tightness, some stiffness in the elbow area.” An MRI was scheduled for after the game.

Reactions were similar all across the baseball universe.

Ruh-roh. https://t.co/8X8ZpNE4la

— Tim Brown (@TBrownYahoo) July 11, 2015

Update: Buchholz left the game with right elbow tightness. So that is not good.

— Jen McCaffrey (@jcmccaffrey) July 11, 2015

In this era the phrase “elbow tightness,” or any relative of it, elicits that kind of response. The plague of Tommy John surgeries is the reason.

Too often that is how the diagnosis starts. A tight elbow. A strained forearm. Any kind of discomfort in that general area.

And then, bang! Some poor pitcher is done for a calendar year, give or take, and his team is left to pick up the pieces of its immediate future, while the player worries about his long-term one.

For now, until we know more about what ails Buchholz, the first concern is how the Red Sox will fare if the 30-year-old has to go on the disabled list.

The Red Sox eventually lost Friday’s game at Fenway Park. It dropped them to 6.5 games behind the first-place Yankees, and their standing in the Wild Card race is even more discouraging, since they’d have to leap over eight teams to land the second spot.

Boston went into this series having won eight of its previous 10 games, shaving 3.5 games from its division deficit in the process. It also became the final major league team to have a winning streak of at least four games.

That surge was exactly what the brass needed to see before the All-Star break if it was going to declare, at least internally, that the team would buy rather than sell at the July 31 trade deadline.

Alex Speier of the Boston Globe even wrote Thursday, “So, they’re buyers, right?” 

But that was assuming the Red Sox would have a healthy Buchholz, who has by far been the team’s best starting pitcher. He went into Friday’s start having won four consecutive decisions, and over his previous 10 starts he had a 1.99 ERA. That is quite the turnaround from his first seven, when he had a 5.73 ERA.

Entering Friday, Buchholz had a 3.27 ERA and 2.54 FIP for the year. His FIP was third-lowest in the league.

With Buchholz, the Red Sox’s rotation is last in the AL with a 4.73 ERA. Without him, it might be the worst baseball has to offer.

So, if Buchholz is out for any significant length of time because of this “elbow tightness,” they are sellers, right? Well, the thing is, they don’t really have anything to sell if they can’t sell Buchholz, because parting with their youth should be a no-no.

Oh, the irony.

The Red Sox hold club options for Buchholz for the next two seasons that would total $26.5 million. Those options, especially if he performs like he has recently, are part of what makes him so appealing to buying teams. He would be a top-of-the-rotation starter at a bargain price.

Now, if Buchholz’s injury is anything remotely serious, he carries no trade value at this deadline. Whether it was winning or losing, he is the player Boston could least afford to lose because he was either carrying it into contention or because he could bring back a strong return in a trade.

Not that the Red Sox were going to trade Buchholz while they were surging, but the possibility of injury was the reason to have sold high.

— Brian MacPherson (@brianmacp) July 11, 2015

From a team standpoint, this forces the Red Sox’s hand one way or the other. If Buchholz is out, they cannot seriously contend for a postseason spot because the rest of their pitching is abysmal.

In order to remain relevant, the team has to be aggressive on the trade market. That means engaging teams about Cole Hamels, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija and whoever else is out there. But even with one of them and no Buchholz, Boston’s chances are slim.

Opting not to go that route leaves one other option: punting the season.

What is known for certain is the Red Sox will have to decide shortly after the All-Star break, and how they finish this series against the Yankees and come out of the break against the Los Angeles Angels and Houston Astros will be the deciding factor.

For now, they remain in limbo.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Things never go exactly according to plan over the course of a Major League Baseball season. In fact, many plans are already off the rails by the time the final out is recorded on Opening Day.

That is how storylines are made, and that is where a season’s worth of surprises and disappointments are born. For better and worse, the first few months of this one have ushered in the unexpected.

From the team no one saw coming, to the player living below expectations, to the out-of-nowhere game-changing trends, to the team expected to be a World Series contender looking like a midseason bust, they are all part of the ebbs and flows of the baseball summer.

This season has already given us all of those things and then some, like the stunning rise of the Houston Astros and the incredible decline of stars like Matt Kemp and Pablo Sandoval. Keep clicking to see some of the biggest surprises and disappointments at the season’s halfway mark.

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This is what you call a snowball. Or at this point it might seem more like Murphy’s Law trying to take effect on the Detroit Tigers, because anything that can seemingly go wrong is creeping around the team right now.

The Tigers have now won two in a row after Saturday’s 8-3 win against the Toronto Blue Jays. But that is coming off being swept at home by the Pittsburgh Pirates and, even worse, Saturday’s news that the best hitter in the game has a severe calf strain.

Miguel Cabrera, who leads the American League in several offensive categories, was pulled from Friday’s game in the fourth inning. After being evaluated, the Tigers announced a Grade 3 left calf strain for the MVP candidate, putting him on the disabled list for the first time in his magnificent career and on the shelf for six weeks.

“When you lose the best hitter on the planet it’s a huge blow,” manager Brad Ausmus told reporters. “We’re going to have to find a way to get it down [sic] without him, at least for the next month and a half or so. We still have a very good offense.” USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale noted losing Cabrera was a “huge blow” for the Tigers:

The #Tigers are dealt huge blow to their AL Central title hopes with Miguel Cabrera out 6 weeks with Grade 3 calf strain. 1st DL stint.

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) July 4, 2015

It is true that the Tigers still have a good lineup. It has scored 15 runs since Cabrera left Friday’s game while running the bases and entered Saturday ranked second in the league in wRC+ (109), wOBA (.328) and third in FanGraphs WAR (13.4). However, the offense has been somewhat inconsistent, showing heavy firepower one day and futility the next far too often. 

Cabrera leads the league in average (.350), OBP (.456), OPS (1.034), wRC+ (184) and wOBA (.436). He has 15 home runs and entered Saturday leading the Tigers with 54 RBI.

He has obviously contributed mightily to steadying the offensive output. Cabrera is as consistent a hitter as you’ll find in the history of the game. Losing him for a significant portion could be devastating for the Tigers, and in a division where they are currently third and a disappointing two games over .500, they cannot afford to be wounded.

“We have to find a way to win without Miggy,” Ausmus told reporters. “Injuries are part of the game, and unfortunately it happened to one of the better players in baseball. It affects us tremendously, but we’re not the first team to have a star player go down.”

But because of who the injury occurred to and where the Tigers stand as an offense and team, Cabrera might be a top-three player whose team can least afford to be without.

So much so that upon news of Cabrera’s DL stint, the Internet flooded with stories of the Tigers’ four-year run as AL Central champs being finished and them going from contender to seller because Cabrera won’t be in the lineup. And, honestly, both storylines have some substance.

The Tigers’ playoff mettle is to be tested in the next few weeks. They travel to Seattle to face that much-improved rotation and then to Minnesota to face a Twins club that sits ahead of them in the Central. They then host the Baltimore Orioles and the Mariners.

At that point, the July 31 trade deadline will be a week away. Decisions will have to be made with conviction.

If the Tigers pass the next three weeks, it makes sense for them to attack the trade market for an arm like Jeff Samardzija or Scott Kazmir. If they fail, it will be brand-new territory for this bunch. Over the previous nine trade deadlines, the Tigers have been above .500, and for the previous six they have bought to improve their postseason chances. If they fail, pieces could be sold.

Six players—David Price, Yoenis Cespedes, Alfredo Simon, Alex Avila, Joakim Soria and Rajai Davis—are pending free agents, and time has likely come and gone to extend any of them beyond this season. That is where the Tigers could start if they decide to sell, which could begin to replenish a farm system that has been virtually nonexistent in recent years.

After it lost Willy Adames and Jake Thompson in the Price and Soria deals last year, respectively, Baseball America rated it the worst in all of baseball entering this season.

That is the unlikely scenario, though.

If the Tigers remain around the .500 mark and within a David Price gem or two of a wild-card berth, they have to keep prying at the window. Cabrera’s eight-year, $248 million extension doesn’t kick in until next year. Justin Verlander is owed $112 million over the next four years. They signed Victor Martinez to a four-year, $68 million deal after last season, and Anibal Sanchez has $37 million remaining over the next two seasons.

Doing a complete teardown with those names and numbers on the books could turn the fanbase against the club and would not sit well with those veterans. And anyway, aside from Price, no one else who would be on the trading block would fetch a nice enough return for the Tigers to execute such a plan.

This is how this will play out: While Cabrera is out, the Tigers will be all in. That might mean making a blockbuster kind of trade sooner than expected, and it definitely means the next three weeks without their best player will define their season.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Every team has a certain level of expectation when the season starts. It could be as low as starting a long-term rebuild or as high as deeming the season a failure if the team does not win the World Series. 

The implementation of the second wild-card berth in each league has shifted expectations in the last three seasons. Because of that extra spot, more teams see themselves as postseason hopefuls. The evidence is in extreme offseason makeovers and so many teams unwilling to declare themselves sellers as the July 31 trade deadline approaches.  

This has led to unmet expectations for a number of those teams this year. At the halfway point of the season—most teams are around the 81-game mark by now—some clubs have certainly underachieved. 

But the second half still carries hope. Those clubs see the trade deadline and the next 80 or so games as their time to rebound and make good on a year that was supposed to last beyond the final game of the regular season.

Based on recent performances, the advanced metrics and what could happen at the trade deadline, a handful of disappointing teams can still break out of their slumps, starting now.

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Major League Baseball released its sixth All-Star Game balloting update Monday, with final results for the July 14 game in Cincinnati to be announced Sunday. Voters have until Thursday night to cast online, although there is always the threat of some votes being “scrubbed” away when the final count is announced.

The latest update shows that MLB’s cancelling of more than 60 million votes has taken some of the steam out of the Kansas City Royals’ domination of the American League starting lineup, but the message has likely been received that some tweaking to the system is needed going forward.

For now, we have the system MLB has relied upon since 1970, where fan voting determines non-pitching starters for each league, including a designated hitter. Despite the game determining home-field advantage in the World Series, the fan-voting system remains in place and has led to ballot-stuffing incidents, including this year, when eight Royals players were leading the AL voting as of June 15. That led to the cancelling of votes days later.

In the American League, there are only two races—second base and DH—where the leader and second-place player are within 1 million votes of each other. In the National League, there are likewise two—the race for third base and the third outfielder.

Some of the spots are therefore likely cemented, but a surge in some territories could lead to final-week upsets. So, knowing how things stand just days before polling closes, click through to check out Bleacher Report’s All-Star Game starter predictions.

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