The Ernie Clement Voting Scandal shoved all the rest of the news this week into the street—the World Cup, the NBA draft, the NHL draft, the NBA trades, the NHL trades, the Mets firing their manager for the sin of managing the Mets, the latest sports media meltdown around but not quite about Caitlin Clark, all of it.
Or maybe you didn't notice that Ernie Clement was the highest vote-getter among American League players for the upcoming All-Star Game in Philadelphia. It's quite possible that you didn't notice Ernie Clement at all. Maybe you're not noticing him right now. Such is the beauty of that arcane old baseball storytelling staple, the unworthy All-Star. Ernie Clement mentioned in proximity to Shohei Ohtani—quel scandale!
Perhaps we should instead refresh your memories on who Clement is before we start. He is the starting second baseman for the Toronto Blue Jays, and he really is one of the best second basemen in the AL, due in no small part to the fact that every other AL second baseman is hitting exactly .251 with six homers and a .712 OPS. For the record, Clement is hitting .294, has seven homers, and his OPS is .753, which is way better. Last year Clement was Toronto's starting third baseman, except for the times when he was the starting shortstop. He had a record 30 hits in the postseason last year, one in which the Blue Jays came within a Moosehead cap of winning the World Series. Clement is 30 years old and, after a skittish start to a career that didn't really blossom until three years ago, has become a proper big-league contributor—a versatile and reliable presence, competent fielder, and perfectly fine hitter. Every team should have an Ernie Clement. Hell, a few already have—Cleveland waived him after the 2022 season, and Oakland released him outright in March of 2023.
But because the Blue Jays are enjoying their post-World Series attendance boom, and because Major League Baseball actively encourages ballot-box stuffing in the All-Star vote as a way to hide the fact that All-Star voting ain't what it used to be, the town has not only galvanized around Clement's candidacy but also those of all his less deserving mates. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is leading at first base despite having hitting four homers and having a demonstrably worse year than at least six other first basemen. Alejandro Kirk is second at catcher despite having played 14 games and hitting .196 in them. Andrés Giménez is having a very Andrés Giménez year. All of them are currently either The People's Choice or a finalist at their position.
Bulk voting has been a thing since fan voting was first allowed in the 1950s, with a brief respite after Cincinnati fans voted for seven of the eight starters in 1957 and the National League office had to intervene and declare that Willie Mays and Hank Aaron were better than Gus Bell and Wally Post. That won't be happening with Our Ernie, though. He is already guaranteed his spot by being the most beloved Jay and the AL player with the most votes; everyone but he and Ohtani have to be re-submitted in a second round of voting that we can only presume will include those six or seven more Blue Jays. After all, if you're going to commit to the bit, you have to go all in, right?
But that's the bone spur in the heel. MLB does not want to have seven Blue Jays in its All-Star Game, because it can't sell seven Blue Jays at the All-Star Game to its advertisers, and the All-Star Game is one of those illusions that more often than not indicate less merit than it bestows. Baseball's purist wing certainly winces at the notion that Ohtani and Clement can be in the same photo, even though Clement has done nothing to earn anyone's side-eye except be popular and useful to a team that plays in a nation-sized market. Which is the whole point of the scam, isn't it?
In fact, because of this very thing, Ernie Clement should be your new favorite player, too. All-Star Games were long ago rendered the emptiest of honorifics because the sports that hold them have no idea how to make them matter even as fun, but nothing says you can't play along. There is no law stipulating that you can't declare Ernie Clement the best player in the American League by the (albeit waning) power of democracy, so you Yordan Alvarez freaks can all go hang.
Sure, in one way you can say that Clement is precisely what's wrong with the All-Star Game process, but it's much more fun to say that he's exactly what's right about it. If MLB wants the teams to accurately match the on-field results, they should just give Sarah Langs $4.6 million a year to name both rosters. She is certainly more trustworthy than anyone else on this sort of thing, no matter what anyone at MLB Network might think, and if nothing else she deserves the same annual salary as Clement. Besides, she would look at the other AL second basemen and conclude, quite properly, that the best of them right now really is Ernie Clement. It's not like she could be swayed by the analytical sorceries of Travis Bazzana or Luke Keaschall.
So yeah, Ernie Clement will be equal to Shohei Ohtani for one night, and that's just the way it has to be. Besides, based on four at-bats in the World Series, including a double that chased him from Game 4, Clement downright owns Ohtani, more than any other current Blue Jay. It's a flimsy case, but we hereby rest it anyway. Canadians have spoken, and these days we're more inclined to listen to them than our own dismal selves. Well, mildly more inclined, anyway. Canadians aren't that much better than us.
