Mike Moustakas is an All-Star thanks to you

Just as they did in 2015, Royals fans rose to the occasion and put the fingers where their hearts were, voting Mike Moustakas into the 2017 All-Star Game in the Final Vote. Pitted against the likes of infielders whose defensive value bolstered much of their cause Xander Bogaerts, Elvis Andrus, and Didi Gregorius and slugger (and Kansas City native) Logan Morrison, Mike Moustakas emerged the victor.

Recent history has proven that Royals fans have no problem getting out the online vote. Exhibit A: the 2015 American League All-Star Team.

Though vote totals have not been released, this was obviously no exception. For much of Thursday—the final day to get votes in and the first in which Twitter hashtags were thrown into the voting mix—the hashtag #VoteMoose was a top 10 trending hashtag in the country on Twitter.

An alliance with the Dodgers (Mike Moustakas grew up in the greater Los Angeles area) and Justin Turner surely helped matters, though getting a hashtag trending nationally while no other players could say the same indicates that perhaps such an alliance was nice if unnecessary for the sake of getting him into the midsummer classic.

The case for Moustakas was built upon his newfound dong-hanging prowess. His 25 home runs trail only Aaron Judge (he is tied for second in the majors with George Springer, and his three home runs amassed while the Final Vote was going on didn’t hurt his cause in the least.

This all goes to show that chicks dig the long ball everybody loves dongs.

As the All-Star Game tends to value offense over defense, Moustakas’s wRC+ and wOBA—advanced metrics that attempt to show how a player’s entire offensive game compares to his peers with a single number, for the unindoctrinated—showed him to have a clear offensive edge over the trio of shortstops whose wRC+ ranged between 111 and 114. Moustakas’s wRC+ of 124 meant he was hitting ten percent better than the best of them.

If someone wanted to be upset about their work at the plate being underappreciated in the Final Vote, Logan Morrison could justifiably lay claim to being that righteously indignant man. By fWAR, wRC+, or virtually any other measure, Morrison’s résumé was superior to Moustakas’s. Unfortunately for Morrison, he plays for the St. Petersburg Devil Rays, not known for having a [rabid?] fanbase. And Russians care little about All-Star Games. Morrison stood no chance.

As for the Yankees, their craven ploy to enlist the Twins and Tigers in support of their candidate were met with a resounding and emphatic NO.

Still Kansas City Royals fans rallied around Mike Moustakas—probably for one last hurrah—and sent their homegrown slugger to the All-Star Game, where he will also compete in the Home Run Derby as the first Royals entrant in the contest since Danny Tartabull did so in 1991.

Congratulations, Moose. Everyone in these parts thinks you deserved it.