2015 MLB All-Star Roster: Complete Selections, Starters, Snubs, Voting and More

Let the debates begin. The starters for the 2015 MLB All-Star Game were announced Sunday night, and you can bet that more than a few fanbases will feel their star player(s) were jilted by a large swath of the country.

More fun that the reveal itself is the heated arguments it creates among opposing sides of the aisle. Few things bring out the tribalism in sports more than All-Star voting. You see it all the time in baseball and basketball, two sports that rely solely on fan voting to determine All-Star starters.

You can always count on one or two really contentious inclusions in an MLB All-Star starting lineup, so taking that margin for error into account, fans for the most part did a good job of recognizing this year's best players. You can view the full list of top vote-getters below:

Position	Player	Team
American League
C	Salvador Perez	Kansas City Royals
1B	Miguel Cabrera	Detroit Tigers
2B	Jose Altuve	Houston Astros
3B	Josh Donaldson	Toronto Blue Jays
SS	Alcides Escobar	Kansas City Royals
OF	Mike Trout	Los Angeles Angels
OF	Lorenzo Cain	Kansas City Royals
OF	Alex Gordon	Kansas City Royals
DH	Nelson Cruz	Seattle Mariners
National League
C	Buster Posey	San Francisco Giants
1B	Paul Goldschmidt	Arizona Diamondbacks
2B	Dee Gordon	Miami Marlins
3B	Todd Frazier	Cincinnati Reds
SS	Jhonny Peralta	St. Louis Cardinals
OF	Bryce Harper	Washington Nationals
OF	Giancarlo Stanton	Miami Marlins
OF	Matt Holliday	St. Louis Cardinals

MLB Communications provided the voting results:

"

Here are the AL final voting totals for the #ASG: pic.twitter.com/wpSgfrM7zT

— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) July 5, 2015"

It's worth noting the starting lineups as they stand tonight may not be what you see for the All-Star Game itself. Some of the stars below may be forced to sit out because of injury; they're all on the disabled list as of Sunday night:

Player	Position	Injury	Potential Return Date
Giancarlo Stanton	OF	Left Hand Surgery	Late July
Matt Holliday	OF	Right Quad Strain	Early July
Miguel Cabrera	1B	Left Calf Strain	August

In the event any All-Star starter is unable to play, it's up to the manager to name a replacement.

Should Giancarlo Stanton and Matt Holliday miss out, the National League will have no shortage of top-quality outfielders. Joc Pederson and Andrew McCutchen would be the natural substitutes, but Nori Aoki, Jason Heyward and A.J. Pollock would be solid alternatives as well.

Coincidentally enough, Holliday was the only questionable choice in the NL squad, so the baseball gods have potentially eliminated that problem altogether.

Chicago Cubs and Colorado Rockies fans will likely make the case Kris Bryant and Nolan Arenado, respectively, deserved to start ahead of Todd Frazier and fall into the "snub" category.

Both Bryant and Arenado have played well this year, but Frazier is the strongest of the three, so the voters got it right. Frazier leads all NL third basemen in wins above replacement (4.4), home runs (25) and slugging percentage (.610).

He had a lot of people to thank on Twitter following the honor:

Moving over to the American League, the Kansas City Royals, as expected, were well represented with four players topping the ballots.

At one point, the franchise had eight players leading the voting as their fans stuffed the ballot boxes, but that dominance began to fade with each subsequent voting update.

When that happened, the big question then became whether Omar Infante—he of the minus-0.1 WAR and .239 on-base percentage—would remain ahead of Jose Altuve. As TechGraphs' David G. Temple noted, the sabermetrics weren't exactly kind to Infante's level of performance this year:

Ultimately, the Houston Astros second baseman climbed just ahead of Infante, thus saving MLB a potential headache.

While Altuve is a more deserving All-Star, the position featured arguably the biggest voting oversight on the ballot. Jason Kipnis has been one of the best players in baseball this year, yet he never stood a chance of starting the All-Star Game.

Even the Cleveland Indians star knew it was futile to try to stump for more votes given the circumstances, per MLB.com's Jordan Bastian:

Since the Indians play in such a small market, in addition to Cleveland being one of the bigger disappointments in MLB, a large segment of fans may be unaware of just how well Kipnis has played. Below, you can see a comparison between him and Altuve and where they rank among the 11 AL second basemen with at least 250 plate appearances:

	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	R	SB	ISO	wRC+	WAR
Jason Kipnis	.342 (1st)	.421 (1st)	.506 (2nd)	6 (6th)	35 (T2nd)	55 (2nd)	10 (2nd)	.165 (3rd)	163 (1st)	4.8 (1st)
Jose Altuve	.302 (3rd)	.347 (4th)	.422 (5th)	7 (5th)	35 (T2nd)	41 (4th)	23 (1st)	.120 (6th)	111 (5th)	2.2 (5th)

The good news is that Kipnis is a lock to be named an All-Star reserve since the Indians are guaranteed at least one representative. Michael Brantley isn't having an All-Star-caliber season, Yan Gomes missed a lot of time through injury, and Corey Kluber's win-loss record will probably preclude him from getting the nod.

Ultimately, simply making the All-Star Game is all that matters. When judging a player's overall legacy, nobody remembers the number of All-Star starts he has made; overall appearances is the only All-Star qualifier.

Getting into heated arguments about starter snubs is always somewhat trivial. The deserving guys slighted by the fans are generally given their due by the managers.

In other words, hold off on the indignation until the reserves are announced Monday.

Note: All stats are courtesy of FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.

Follow @JosephZucker on Twitter.