Belt finishes runner-up in NL Final Vote
It took the second-most votes in the history of MLB’s Final Vote contest to keep the Giants’ Brandon Belt off the National League AllStar team.
The Brewers’ Jesus Aguilar was revealed on Wednesday night as the NL’s winner, but the slugging first baseman needed to become the second player in the 17year history of the online fan vote to clear the 20-million mark to do it. Belt still could wind up in Washington D.C. next week for the game, though it’d be as an injury replacement.
Mariners shortstop Jean Segura won the AL’s 32nd roster spot.
According to MLB.com. Aguilar’s vote total of 20,229,498 is second only to the Dodgers’ Justin Turner, who won last season’s NL spot with 20,819,242 votes. The 28-year-old Venezuelan is tied for the NL lead with 23 home runs.
“First off, I just want to say I believe, I was told, that Russia actually interfered with this election,” Belt joked with reporters following the Giants’ extrainning win over the Cubs on Wednesday.
He quickly continued, “I just want to say congrats to Jesus and Jean. They definitely deserved it. I want to say thank you to all the fans for voting. That was pretty amazing. Jesus had like 20 million votes, so just the fact that I was in second was pretty cool.”
Belt won the NL Final Vote spot in 2016 with 10.4 million votes. The first baseman’s 2018 vote totals were not released, but he finished second in the NL, followed
by Max Muncy of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals and Matt Carpenter of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Segura, who received 13.6 million votes, was followed by Boston Red Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi, New York Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton, Minnesota Twins outfielder Eddie Rosario and Los Angeles Angels shortstop Andrelton Simmons.
Belt’s 2018 campaign included a push by the Giants’ digital social media team (Belt noted that, “without them, I might have had three or four votes”) as well as teammates Derek Holland and Hunter Pence, whose WWE-style endorsement as the shirtless and oiled-up “Ballot Brothers” helped attract social media attention.
“That was one of the coolest things to see your teammates behind you,” Belts aid. “To take time out of their schedule and promote me, really meant a lot, so thanks to all my teammates too.”