Ernie Clement has 2,054,130 All-Star votes. Ernie Clement, the Toronto Blue Jays’ utility second baseman, leads every player in the American League. He has more votes than Bobby Witt Jr., who is having an actual legitimate All-Star season. He has nearly as many votes as Shohei Ohtani, who is Shohei Ohtani. This is the state of MLB’s fan voting in 2026.
Clement isn’t fraudulent as a player — .293 average, 7 homers, 28 RBI, a 106 wRC+ (100 is league average) that puts him slightly above it. He’s having the best year of his career. But he’s a utility guy. He’s the kind of player you roster because he can play six positions, not because he’s the best second baseman in the league. Nobody is watching Blue Jays games in June and thinking “that’s our All-Star.” Nobody except, apparently, an entire country.
This is the thing about the Blue Jays that the rest of the AL East has learned to live with: Canada has one MLB team. One. That’s 41 million people with exactly one rooting interest, and MLB gave them five votes per day per email address plus a sixth through a Konami mobile game. FanSided made the case earlier this month that the first ballot update alone proved the system is broken. That piece ran before Clement lapped the field. The Blue Jays were literally flashing vote totals on the Rogers Centre scoreboard before games to keep the momentum going.
Meanwhile the Red Sox are sitting at 32-46, dead last in the AL East, 15.5 games behind the Yankees. Jarren Duran is hitting .199. The team is reportedly shopping pieces at the deadline. Boston’s most notable contribution to the 2026 season has been losing in new ways every week.
There’s a version of this story where a Red Sox fan is angry that a legitimate Boston player got snubbed. That would require a legitimate Boston player in contention. Instead we get to sit last in the division and watch the second official ballot update confirm that Ernie Clement is the face of the American League.
Ernie Clement leads American League players in All-Star voting with over 2M votes!
The top vote-getter in each league through June 25 earns an automatic All-Star bid. pic.twitter.com/Qmwhcq984q
— MLB (@MLB) June 22, 2026
The AL East this year has one team running away with the division, a Rays squad clinging to a wild card spot, a fan base that votes like a national obligation, and a Boston club threading the needle between rebuilding and just being bad. The All-Star Game used to carry some weight. Now it’s a Konami promotional event with a baseball game attached. Red Sox fans didn’t need this on top of everything else.
