MLB All-Star Selection Show 2015: Date, Time, Schedule, Vote Leaders and More

The rosters for the 2015 MLB All-Star Game will become a lot clearer after Sunday night.

As with any All-Star Game, you know there are a select few stars—in this case Mike Trout, Giancarlo Stanton, Bryce Harper and Miguel Cabrera—who are almost guaranteed locks to top the voting at their respective positions.

Plenty of question marks hover around many positions across both leagues, however. Then, you have the little matter of the league eliminating around 60 to 65 million votes after rumors that fans were skirting the rules regarding the number of times you can vote in a single day. That tightened a few different positional races.

Sunday's selection show will only provide the starters for the All-Star Game. MLB Communications announced that a subsequent show will be broadcast Monday to announce the reserve players, pitchers and candidates for the Final Vote.

Date	Time (ET)	TV Info	Live Stream
Sun., July 5	7:30 p.m.	ESPN	Watch ESPN

By far, the biggest question heading into Sunday is how many Kansas City Royals players will make the American League starting lineup. Earlier in the month, a member of the Royals occupied eight of the top nine spots.

"Royals fans are really passionate," said Jake Lupardus, a Royals fan who admitted to voting 105 times a day, per Justin Wilfon of 41 Action News in Kansas City. "They want to see as many of their guys in there as possible."

More recently, Kansas City's stranglehold on the voting has lessened. You can view the most up-to-date returns below:

On one hand, would it be that bad to advocate for complete All-Star anarchy? The more Royals, the better.

Simply put, you can't say the All-Star Game means something when fans can vote whomever they want into the event.

Perhaps having a number of statistically undeserving players starting the game would force MLB to either change the voting structure or remove home-field advantage in the World Series as a carrot for the winning team.

Then again, because World Series home-field advantage is on the line, is it really a good thing that Omar Infante might start the 2015 All-Star Game ahead of Jason Kipnis, Jose Altuve or Brian Dozier?

Heading into Thursday night, Infante ranked 10th out of 11 qualified American League second basemen in WAR, per FanGraphs. He also had a .236 on-base percentage, which is last among qualified AL hitters.

Earlier in the month, Detroit Tigers ace David Price wasn't amused with Royals fans flooding the ballot boxes:

Looking at the June 29 voting update, it wouldn't be all that surprising if Infante gets usurped by Altuve, thus eliminating the problem altogether.

All of the discussion regarding the Royals and Infante has overshadowed what's going on in the National League.

There aren't too many egregious cases of the fans getting it wrong, but it's somewhat surprising Matt Holliday and Nori Aoki remained the third- and fourth-highest vote-getters among NL outfielders, ahead of Andrew McCutchen and Joc Pederson.

If you go by the numbers, Pederson should be in third behind Harper and Stanton. His 3.6 WAR is third at the position in the NL, per FanGraphs, and he boasts a .525 slugging percentage with 20 home runs and 38 runs batted in.

ESPN.com's Keith Law made the case that Pederson's off-field impact should also be considered in his All-Star candidacy:

"

I'm assuming he'll get in; either way, he and Kris Bryant clearly belong in the game based on performance and projection. The All-Star Game is a marketing event, and MLB needs to have its future stars on display. With all of the hyped rookies we've had this year, those two are the only top prospects coming into this season who've played most of the year in the majors and performed well.

"

Should the fans fail to put Pederson in, MLB.com's Jon Weisman noted there's a good chance he'll start anyway because Stanton, Holliday and Aoki are all injured. San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy ultimately has the final say, but you'd bet he'd go with Pederson should his other top options be out of the question.

Ultimately, the All-Star starters selection show is a somewhat anticlimactic exercise. Almost any player who gets overlooked will get in as a reserve. In addition, the number of All-Star starts a player makes is never counted toward his overall legacy; it's simply about All-Star appearances.

Of course, that won't stop fans from getting worked up when their favorite players are omitted from the squad Sunday.