Despite their best effort, Phillies fans failed to ruin the MLB All-Star Game

The Philadelphia Phillies are well-represented in the MLB All-Star Game, with eight players on the National League squad. That ties the league record, joining the 2023 Atlanta Braves as the only teams with eight All-Stars over the last decade. Philadelphia also has five pitchers in the game, which stands alone as the most ever.

Not everybody will get to participate, unfortunately — both Zack Wheeler and Ranger Suarez will watch from the sideline — but the Phils are the best team in baseball and have been rewarded as such. This is a historic team deserving of a historic milestone.

That said, we were almost inundated with a few too many Phillies. Back when All-Star voting was underway, Philadelphia had nine players in the top 10 for their respective positions.

Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, and Alec Bohm all ended up winning spots in the starting lineup. There's not much of an argument against either Harper or Bohm, while Turner's red-hot June and July cemented him as a worthy candidate at shortstop, even in the face of Mookie Betts' candidacy.

JT Realmuto in the top-2 despite missing so much time to injury, however, was a stretch. Bryson Stott was the third-place vote recipient at second base. He's a rock-solid MLB starter, but he's nowhere close to the best at his position. And, most egregious of all, there was the presence of all three outfield starters — Brandon Marsh, Nick Castellanos, and Johan Rojas — at fifth through seventh among outfield vote-getters, respectively. Casty and Marsh were in the finalists bunch at one point.

It's great for fans to support their teams and Philadelphia fans are the best in all of sports as far as this writer is concerned. The whole point of the voting system is to reward passionate fanbases who engage with the process. We cannot penalize for Phillies fans for caring the most. If millions of folks want to watch Bryson Stott in the All-Star Game, well, they have the power to manifest it.

That said, there was some understandable pushback to the idea of giving fans so much power. There was real concern that Philadelphia would hijack the starting lineup and snub far more deserving candidates.

In the end, however, we avoided that outcome.

NL All-Star starting lineup rocks for everyone despite heavy Phillies presence

The National League starting lineup panned out nicely, with deserving candidates across the board and plenty of star-power to invest in.

Look, there will always be irking snubs. Mookie Betts has been great this season, but he's hurt. So even if Turner was the No. 2 vote-getter... he would be starting. The Brewers and Dodgers both have multiple starters, too, so it's not like Philadelphia is entirely unique here. The best teams with the most star-power tend to outshine lesser teams with lesser stars. It's the nature of the beast.

This is the best of both worlds. The Phillies get the most All-Stars (and All-Star starters), so the agenda is strong in the City of Brotherly Love, But, Philadelphia's representation doesn't come at the cost of other teams and fanbases. It's good to have a balanced perspective of the great players and teams around the league. This lineup accomplishes that, from the red-hot Paul Skenes (who may or may not 'deserve' to start over Philadelphia's triad of nominated starting pitchers), to the ongoing sensation of Shohei Ohtani and the unexpected first-place standing of Milwaukee.

Philly fans deserve all the credit in the world for spamming the polls — that's what it's all about, getting your dudes in the national spotlight — but thankfully, we aren't dealing with the distraction of quibbling over Bryson Stott or Nick Castellanos starting in the All-Star Game.