Brantley Named to MLB's 2018 AL All Star Team!

third time's the charm! hi, Brantley fans! our boy Michael has been named an All Star for the second year in a row and is going to Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., on July 17 as an American League outfield reserve!⭐⭐⭐👏👏👏

the happy news came tonight, on July 8 during ESPN's All Star Selection Show. Mookie Betts of the Boston Red Sox, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels, and Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees are the starting outfielders for the American League team, which we basically already knew weeks ago. as soon as the very first AL All Star ballot updates came out, it was pretty apparent that those three would be starters.

Michael was in 4th place on the fan ballot for the first two updates before he fell to 5th on the third released update. then, on July 2, MLB Communications posted one last voting update and Michael remained in 5th place. though he'd gained 299,302 votes since June 26, he was 48,285 votes behind George Springer of the Houston Astros and 927,972 votes behind 3rd starter Judge. Betts held a whooping 2,025,730-vote lead on Michael, who was only ahead of 6th place Andrew Benintendi of the Red Sox by 22,241 votes. Brant was never really in the running to start, sadly.

thankfully, Michael was selected by his peers to be an AL All Star reserve player for the third time in his career! he's the only Indians outfielder to

Brantley Ranked 81st in MLBRank's Top 100 Players Right Now

let me start this off by saying i am shocked that a list of this nature is coming out now when we are approaching the midway point of baseball season. i waited for Baseball Tonight's Top 100 to be released during spring training for weeks, to no avail. apparently, MLBRank's list is the replacement and i was not expecting it. out with the old, in with the new i guess. in any case, i apologize for the lateness of this post.

photo courtesy of ESPN.com

MLBRank's Top 100 countdown commenced today and will run through June 30. each morning, 20 players will be posted on ESPN.com, starting with #100-81 and going all the way down to #20-1. (previously, players were

Brantley Ranked 4th in Baseball Tonight's Top 10 Left Fielders

now that Baseball Tonight's Top 100 list is complete, it's time for them to name their annual Top 10 players at each position going into the 2016 season. once again, the way in which this was revealed differs from last year.

today, on March 25, ESPN's Baseball Tonight unveiled all of their Top 10s in one day and at the same time online. the panel of MLB writers, analysts, and contributors who ranked the Top 100 also ranked the Top 10s, and some players who didn't make the Top 100 list did make it onto their respective position lists. my blog, however, is solely going to focus on the Top 10 Left Fielders.

this year, BBTN ranked Michael as the 4th best left fielder going into 2016. last year, he was ranked as the best left fielder going into 2015. so clearly their opinion of Michael has gone down, most likely due to the shoulder injury he suffered towards the end of the season. (although, if you've been keeping up with all my Brantley update blogs, then you already know there's now a chance that Michael could open the season with the Tribe.) whatever the reason, i disagree immensely.

here is BBTN's entire Top 10 LF list, featuring both American and National League players:

Brantley Ranked 80th in Baseball Tonight's Top 100 Players

i wasn't expecting Baseball Tonight to start its Top 100 countdown so soon. usually, they do that over two days at the end of spring training, both online and in a TV special. now, the Top 100 reveal is taking place over 10 days, from March 15-24. every morning, a new set of 10 players, beginning with #100-91, is posted on ESPN.com. and when it's time for the Top 10 to be announced on March 24, that will occur on a special edition of Baseball Tonight at 10 pm EST on ESPN2 and WatchESPN.

much like the change in the publication of this list, the way in which it was constituted differs from last year as well. a panel of 70 ESPN experts (vs. 60 previously), including MLB writers, analysts, and contributors, was polled in February and March after being given a list of more than 350 MLB players (vs. 600 last year). these experts evaluated the players by assigning them a number from 0 to 10 based on player projections for 2016.

a year ago, Michael Brantley made his debut on this list when he ranked 43rd on BBTN's Top 100. knowing that Michael's 2015 season was not as strong as his All Star 2014 season, and knowing that projections don't take into account the fact that Michael played hurt a lot in 2015 (which consequently hindered some of his stats), i presumed Michael wouldn't top last year's rank.

so where does Michael fall on this list?

Brantley Ranked 43rd in Baseball Tonight's Top 100 Players

as promised, ESPN's Baseball Tonight unveiled their Top 100 Players going into 2015 on March 30 and 31. the players ranked 100-51 were revealed on the afternoon of March 30 online, while the players ranked 50-26 were revealed online in the afternoon today on March 31. and later tonight, an ESPN2 special, airing at 8 pm EST, will be announcing the Top 25 players.

unfortunately, in what came as a complete shock to me, i did not have to wait for the 8 o'clock show to find out where Michael placed on the list because

Brantley Ranked 1st in Baseball Tonight's Top 10 Left Fielders

today, on March 23, ESPN's Baseball Tonight revealed their Top 10 left fielders going into 2015. not normally one to care much about ESPN rankings, i figured i would post this on my blog anyways because it's great for Michael.

a panel of MLB writers, analysts, and contributors were put together by ESPN to rank the Top 100 MLB players heading into 2015. a list of more than 300 players was provided to over 60 ESPN experts, who were polled in February and March. that list was narrowed down to the Top 100 based on how well the experts felt the players would perform, on a scale of 0 to 10, in 2015. those results will be announced on March 30 and 31 on a special edition of Baseball Tonight at 8 pm EST on ESPN2. i am very interested in seeing where Michael ranks on that list.

until then however, Baseball Tonight is revealing their Top 10 lists of each position around the diamond. today they kicked it off with the Top 10 left, center, and right fielders, but i am only going to cover the Top 10 left fielders here.

Will Brantley Be "Worse" In 2015?

this has been a hot topic of interest lately. will Michael Brantley have a significant drop in production in 2015? of course i say no, but not everyone out there in the baseball world agrees with me.

i was inspired to write this blog partially in thanks to the ESPN blog that came out today ranking the top 6 baseball teams going into spring training, which i'm NOT going to link here because i dislike all things ESPN with a passion and am not going to promote them. my motivation also came from the fact that several other media members have been saying how Michael is going to regress in 2015 and won't put together the same type of season as the one he just had in 2014. now it's time for me to speak out with my rebuttal. get ready, cause i'm about to go hard for my boy lol ;D