Major League Baseball announced the winners of the 2015 MLB All-Star Game Final Vote on Friday afternoon. Kansas City Royals third baseman Mike Moustakas and St. Louis Cardinals right-handed pitcher Carlos Martinez were chosen by fans as the winners for the final two AL and NL All-Star roster spots. The players were chosen through online voting on MLB.com, the individual club sites and Twitter, where custom player hashtags counted during the final six hours of voting.
MLB All-Star Game Final Vote: Mike Moustakas, Carlos Martinez finalize rosters
Moustakas and Martinez rounded out the 34-man rosters for the AL and NL teams, beating out others such as Clayton Kershaw and Yoenis Cespedes for the final spots.
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On the NL ballot, Martinez came back from third place to claim the lead on the final day over Johnny Cueto (Cincinnati Reds), Clayton Kershaw (Los Angeles Dodgers) and Troy Tulowitzki (Colorado Rockies). Jeurys Familia (New York Mets) finished fifth. Martinez received 14.1 million votes and became the second Cardinals player to win the MLB All-Star Game Final Vote (David Freese, 2012).
The AL winner (Moustakas) tallied 19.3 million votes and held off a late charge from Minnesota Twins' Brian Dozier, becoming the first Royals player to win the Final Vote. Moustakas and Dozier were followed by Detroit Tigers outfielder Yoenis Cespedes (third) and Boston Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts (fourth). New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner was removed from the ballot on Thursday after being named to the AL All-Star Team as an injury replacement.
Moustakas becomes the seventh Royals player to make the 86th Midsummer Classic roster. The Cardinals enter six All-Stars with the selection of Martinez. Only the Cardinals and Royals have a record above .600 as of Friday afternoon, with the Cardinals at .651 to lead the majors.
The 2015 Final Vote saw Twitter voting peak at 25,000 tweets in the final minute of voting. In the end, the top two leading Twitter vote-getters were in the AL, #VoteMoose and #VoteDozier, and were followed by #Vote Cueto, #VoteTsunami and #MVPforASG in the top five. A record-setting 111.8 million ballots were cast to conclude the voting. A visualization of the voting efforts by county can be found here for both the AL and NL sides.
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