Eat your hearts out, Boston Red Sox fans. According to one measure of popularity, Brock Holt shouldn’t be the team’s lone All-Star Game representative.
Sports Illustrated took to Twitter to determine the most popular players in baseball, using the total number of Twitter mentions each player has received since Opening Night on April 5. Based on those findings, they remade the starting lineups for both All-Star squads.
Among the players? None other than Red Sox shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who just barely missed out on joining Holt after being a member of the Final Vote ballot.
Bogaerts wasn’t the only member of the Red Sox who qualified for the honor based on SI’s numbers. Left fielder Hanley Ramirez and third baseman Pablo Sandoval each would be starting Tuesday’s Midsummer Classic if Twitter were the lone factor in the voting.
Of course, popularity on Twitter doesn’t necessarily correlate with success on the field, and Ramirez and Sandoval weren’t exactly snubs. Twitter may be onto something with Bogaerts, though, as even other MLB players think he should have made the AL’s roster.
The New York Yankees would have had a few players starting as well based on Twitter results, as designated hitter Alex Rodriguez and ace Masahiro Tanaka would get the nod on the mound.
Click here to see the biggest All-Star snubs >>
Thumbnail photo via Twitter/@RedSox
