Every year, I decide that it's not worth caring about the All-Star vote--voters just clearly value players differently than I do, so whatever. But I looked at the current voting totals, and I just can't help but comment.

If the polls closed today, this would be the AL All-Star team:

C -- Varitek, Red Sox
1B -- Youkilis, Red Sox
2B -- Pedroia, Red Sox
SS -- Jeter, Yankees
3B -- Rodriguez, Yankees
LF -- Ramirez, Red Sox
CF -- Ichiro, Mariners
RF -- Hamilton, Rangers
DH -- Ortiz, Red Sox

At that rate, we might as well just let the Yankees and the Red Sox represent the AL and give everyone else a 3-day break. I might just prefer that anyway.

Obviously, there's the question of whether or not the Yankees and Red Sox deserve to have those spots, and I think a lot of them are deserved. Morneau is right up there with Youkilis, but Youkilis is clearly the better defender so Youkilis is a reasonable choice.

Pedroia is a defensible choice over Kinsler, though Brian Roberts might deserve the spot the most. (Not that that really matters, because Roberts is in 5th and Robinson Cano--with a -6.7 VORP so far this season--is second in the voting.)

As much as I detest Jeter, iron glove and all, there aren't any candidates obviously better than him. SS is a really weak position in the AL in general, no one has distinguished himself above Jeter this year, and Jeter led the league in VORP last year.

A-Rod's been hurt for a bunch of this year, but still leads the league in VORP at 3B. And last year, he had nearly twice Mike Lowell's VORP--and Mike Lowell was the second-best 3B in the league last year. (A-Rod's 96.6 VORP last year was nearly as much as Mike Lowell's 46.6 VORP and Justin Morneau's 52 VORP from his 2006 "MVP" campaign combined. And last year, A-Rod was probably about 12-13 wins better than Nick Punto.) So A-Rod's the clear choice at 3B, and Lowell is actually a defensible second choice.

I don't really have a problem with Manny in the OF. Yeah, his defense is awful, but his bat is great and the only LF who has especially distinguished himself offensively this year (Carlos Quentin) is also really bad defensively. And Manny's got a track record, which I put in his favor.

Josh Hamilton was really good last year and has been awesome this year, so I also have no problem with putting him in the AL OF. You could make a case for Grady Sizemore, B.J. Upton, or maybe even Jacoby Ellsbury over Ichiro, but Ichiro had a better season than all three of those guys last year, so I don't know that they've done so much this year to distinguish themselves from Ichiro. You could maybe make a case for putting Magglio Ordonez in the OF, but I probably wouldn't.

Milton Bradley and Hideki Matsui have both been more valuable than David Ortiz at DH so far this year, but I can't really fault the voters for giving Ortiz the nod. (Though if Ortiz was hurt, it would seem to make more sense to shift Manny to DH and put someone like Magglio Ordonez in the vacated corner spot--which is absolutely what you would do if you were really trying to win the game and Ortiz was hurt--but we all know this is an exhibition and not a game that anyone's trying all that hard to win anyway.)

Of course, I think it's disgusting that Varitek has more votes than Mauer. It's been a matter of years since Varitek was a better player than Mauer. Even then, Mauer probably needs to get hot again, plus hit a couple of home runs, or do something else noteworthy to get enough press to pass Varitek.

Had he been healthy, Posada would have been a better candidate than Varitek, but Posada's been hurt. Victor Martinez is probably even worse defensively than Varitek, and though he was great last year, has barely been above replacement level last year. Ivan Rodriguez is a shell of what he used to be. Miguel Olivo's had a good year (relative to what is a pretty weak field of catchers thus far), but is Miguel Olivo really an All-Star?

Anyway, looking at the field, catcher is the only position that I have strong objections to. So really, I'm forced to admit that even though I hate it, there should probably be 6 Yankees/Red Sox in the starting 9. Perhaps this should not be surprising, since they have gigantic payrolls that make it impossible for lower budget teams to even consider signing some of their players. Hooray for parity.