11. Fan voting for the All-Star Game

With the passing of the voting deadline last night, I was going to write a big long post on why the system is flawed. I was going to write why, with the game determining home-field advantage in the World Series, it matters that the system is flawed. But I was beaten to the punch by Gene Wojciechowski, who makes a great case for taking away the fans' votes.

I would like to add one more reason why the system is flawed. The Pollack mentions that anyone who plays DH (see: Jim Thome) is left off the ballot (of course, David Ortiz's five starts at 1st base were enough to get HIM on the ballot). Just as important are utility players like Bill Hall (.268, 16 HRs, 39 RBIs) are not up for consideration. Granted, those numbers do not make someone like Hall a shoe-in, but before his recent struggles he was batting around .300 while putting up great power numbers...and yet, could only receive write-in votes.
The fact that you need to have a position to receieve a spot on the ballot is just one of the problems with the current voting system. The bigger one, however, is that fans are generally idiots and/or homers. For more on that, I turn it over to Gene...