The All-Popular Team

You may have heard the controversy recently surrounding Manny Ramirez potentially being voted to the All-Star team by the fans despite not having played a lot due to his suspension.

I think this exposes an inherent flaw in the way the MLB and the NBA determine their All-Star starters.

It's hard to reconcile that being an All-Star is prestigious, yet the starters are picked by fans, who will not always pick the best player. Typically they will pick the most popular.

This invariably creates situations where you're faced with players awarded a prestigious honor who have earned it more from being notable than from playing well.

Notable undeserving vote-ins:
NBA
2009 - Allen Iverson
2007 - Shaq (I'm not 100% sure about this, but I recall Shaq not really having that great of a year)
2003 - Vince Carter

MLB
2008 - Kosuke Fukudome
2007 - Ken Griffey Jr.

I know there are more, but I can't seem to remember.

The instituted remedy is that the manager or coach who is coaching the team is able to pick the rest of the players on the All-Star roster using his discretion, and thus those players who have played well are awarded the honor of being an All-Star.

This works to a degree, but the bottom line is that every spot taken by an undeserving player is one less for a player who does deserve it.

I suggest one of two fixes:

1. Fans and players combine to vote for All-Stars
The fan vote will account for 2/3 of the weight in determining the starters, and a player vote will account for the other 1/3 of the weight. You may have your occasional player who votes only for himself and those around him, but I think those players will be far outnumbered by players voting honestly.

For example, no baseball player would vote for Manny to be an All-Star this year, so even if he is voted in by the fans, he will not be able to survive the player vote factor. (Unless the player vote is absurdly widely spread out amongst outfielders)

This way, you still preserve the aspect of "being voted in by the fans" and yet are able to get the best players in there.

Or
2. All-Star Electoral College
This is a lot more complicated. Bear with me.

There is voting at stadiums, as usual. These votes are separated and represents that team's fans' vote. So all of the votes cast at AT&T Park are bunched under "Giants Fans Votes" and all of the votes cast at Citi Field are bunched under "Mets Fans Votes"

There is also online voting, as usual. You can trace the location of a voter by IP address, so you can split up the online votes into geographic regions, with each team getting a certain geographic region. So if I lived in Milwaukee or in close proximity, my vote would be bunched under "Brewers Fans Votes"

Those online voters from regions without a team nearby or with divided loyalty (N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Alaska, New Mexico, etc) get bunched under "other US". Those outside of the US get bunched under "international"

*For areas with two teams in close proximity, LA Dodgers & Anaheim Angels, Oakland A's & SF Giants, NY Mets & Yankees, you would split up that area in a way that makes sense, given the common allegiances.*

So at this point you have a vote for each team (online + stadium), a vote for "other US" (online) and a vote for "international" (online)

Then you run it just like the electoral college. Whoever gets the most votes of the 32 "states" gets to start in their respective position.

Even if 1 million people voted for Manny in the greater Los Angeles area, it wouldn't matter because there wouldn't be enough votes across the rest of America to make a difference, since the opinions of the Dodger fans would only account for 1/32nd of the overall vote.

This concept would also keep a guy like Kosuke Fukudome, who was undoubtedly fueled by the Japanese vote exclusively, out of the picture as well, as the international vote would only account for 1/32nd of the overall vote.

I really hope I've explained the process clearly enough because I think it would really work.