Cardinals’ Donovan off to Surprisingly Slow Start in All-Star Voting originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
We’re just under a month away from this year’s MLB All-Star Game, which will take place in Atlanta on July 15. With voting having been open for nearly two weeks now, MLB released the first all-star ballot update update on Monday afternoon.
Advertisement
Five different Cardinals cracked the top 10 at their respective positions, but none of them were ranked inside the top two, which is necessary to advance the the second phase of fan voting.
Most notably, second baseman Brendan Donovan is currently in fourth place among NL second baseman, trailing the Diamondbacks’ Ketel Marte, Dodgers’ Tommy Edman and Cubs’ Nico Hoerner.
The other Cardinals currently ranked inside the top 10 are designated hitter Iván Herrera (7th), first baseman Willson Contreras (8th), third baseman Nolan Arenado (9th) and shortstop Masyn Winn (10th).
Donovan being in fourth place comes as a surpirse, considering he is the league leader at second base in WAR (according to FanGraphs) and leads all qualified second basemen in batting average, on-base percentage and wRC+.
Cardinals second baseman Brendan DonovanJeff Curry-Imagn Images
Marte being ahead of Donovan is understandable given the numbers he’s put up this season, but he’s also played in 20 less games. Just from a numbers perspective, though, there doesn’t appear to be any reason for Edman and Hoerner to be receiving votes ahead of Donovan.
Advertisement
The Los Angeles and Chicago markets compared to St. Louis obviously play a role in these fan voting numbers too. Donovan only trails Hoerner by roughly 28,000 votes, but Edman has him beat by close to 200,000 votes.
With a 2.2 WAR and slashline of .313/.381/.440 through 65 games, Donovan has certainly posted an all-star caliber season. He’ll need to crack the top two in fan voting in order to move on to Phase 2 of the voting process. Phase 1 concludes on Thursday, June 26 at noon EST.
Related: Cardinals Can End 39-Year Drought, and You Can Help
Related: Cardinals Former 1st Round Pick Turning Heads Amid Brendan Donovan News
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 16, 2025, where it first appeared.