With Chipper Jones in the 2012 MLB All-Star Game in place of the injured Matt Kemp, St. Louis Cardinals third baseman David Freese leads remaining NL Final Vote contestants ahead of polling's Thursday close. Freese, who's hitting .286/.334/.479 with 13 home runs and 48 RBI a year after his incredible World Series performance, isn't a conventional All-Star, but he remains ahead of Michael Bourn, Aaron Hill, and--perhaps most surprisingly--Bryce Harper now that Jones, who's retiring following the 2012 season, is out of the vote.
Freese, who hit .397/.465/.794 last season in a postseason performance few players have ever matched, is just a month's starts away from playing 100 games for the first time in his career--as nice as it's been to finally see the power he promised as a minor leaguer develop, the most impressive thing about Freese's performance so far has been his ability to stay in the lineup.
(So if he misses the All-Star Game, and is therefore fractions of a percent less likely to break both his ankles in some terrible accident--well, I won't begrudge the people who give their Final Votes to Bourn or Hill.)