Kris Bryant leads All-Star balloting at a position he’s barely played this year

Major League Baseball announced Monday the first results from All-Star balloting for 2021.

The only Cubs player leading at his position is Kris Bryant — at third base, a position he’s played just once since April 20 and has played just 16 times this season.

For this season’s All-Star balloting, there will be three finalists from preliminary voting at each position and then fans will vote from among the finalists for the starters for the All-Star Game, which will take place at Coors Field in Denver July 13.

Bryant, with 502,970 votes leads Nolan Arenado (239,189) and Justin Turner (198,807). Those are the top three at third base.

Other Cubs in the top three of voting at their positions: Anthony Rizzo, third behind Max Muncy and Freddie Freeman at first base; Willson Contreras, third behind Buster Posey and Yadier Molina at catcher; and Javier Báez, second behind Fernando Tatis Jr. at shortstop. Joc Pederson sits at 10th place among outfielders, where the top nine will move to the second round.

Here’s all the National League balloting:

All-Star balloting this year is exclusively online and via mobile devices at MLB.com, all 30 MLB team sites, the MLB App and on Google Search (U.S. and Canada only).

First-round balloting ends at 3 p.m. CT on Thursday, June 24. On Sunday, June 27, the top three vote-getters at each position except for outfielders (where it will be the top nine) in each league will be revealed at 11 a.m. CT on MLB Network. Those players will advance to the second phase of voting to determine the All-Star starters for each league. Phase 2 voting will begin at 11 a.m. CT on Monday, June 28 and go through 1 p.m. CT on Thursday, July 1.

During the initial voting period, you can submit up to five ballots per 24-hour period on MLB platforms, and can vote for every position, or vote for up to 17 unique players per day on Google.