Look, I know how these people feel. Here. work out, A few writers were chosen to wax poetic about the superstar players who made this year’s All-Star team, and the rest were left out, and our rightful spots on the roster were ridiculously overlooked due to the strange and overly complicated selection process.
We are the ignored ones. And we are all in this together.
Now, let me introduce you to our non-All-Star All-Star team, the team of the most valuable players at each position who were not called on Sunday night and who, at least so far, have not been selected for the Midsummer Classic.
NOTE: Starting position players are chosen by fan voting, with players voting for eight pitchers and one backup player at each position. The league selects the final few players to complete the roster so that every team has a representative.
catcher
Patrick Bailey, San Francisco Giants
Neither league has a third catcher this season (and it’s pretty easy to argue that each league got two right), but Bailey would have been a valuable addition (the leagues instead chose outfielder Heliot Ramos and ace Logan Webb as the Giants’ flagships). By pitching and framing metrics, Bailey is one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, and his wRC+ ranks him on par with Salvador Perez offensively. Bailey made his debut last year. He’ll make the All-Star team someday.
Go deeper
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first base
Christian Walker, Arizona Diamondbacks
Here’s a word of advice to anyone looking to make the All-Star team: Don’t play in the same league and position as Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman. Those two players are both on their eighth All-Star teams this season. Walker has yet to make an All-Star team. He has the third-most home runs in the NL (behind All-Star DHs Shohei Ohtani and Marcell Ozuna) and the 10th-best wRC+ in the NL (but behind Harper and Freeman). Walker would still be eligible if Harper’s hamstring injury keeps him out of the All-Star game, but the Phillies seem to expect Harper to return this week.
Iru
Bryce Tourang, Milwaukee Brewers
WAR isn’t a perfect metric, but it’s a useful abbreviation for a player’s overall impact. According to Baseball Reference’s version of WAR, Tourang is the fourth-best player in the National League. FanGraphs’ version isn’t as optimistic, but he still ranks 20th in the NL, 30 spots higher than NL backup second baseman Luis Arraez, and has a WAR of more than 1.5. Tourang doesn’t have Arraez’s batting average, but he has more power, more stolen bases, and far better defensive stats. But the players chose Arraez.
shortstop
Francisco Lindor, New York Mets
If Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner, who missed significant time with an injury, had not been voted the NL starter, there might have been a spot for Lindor, who ranked seventh in fWAR in the league. But the players chose Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds (a replacement for the injured Mookie Betts) and the league chose C.J. Abrams of the Washington Nationals as its sole representative, leaving no room for Lindor or Willy Adames of the Milwaukee Brewers. There have been 40 players with at least 2.5 fWAR so far this season, nine of them at shortstop (11 if you count the Minnesota Twins’ multi-position Willi Castro and the Texas Rangers’ Josh Smith). Even with seven players from both rosters, the shortstop ignorance was inevitable.
third base
Jordan Westberg, Baltimore Orioles
Five third basemen ranked in the top 18 in American League fWAR, but there was no room on the roster for all of them. Fans voted for Jose Ramirez, players voted for Rafael Devers, and the league chose Isaac Paredes as the Tampa Bay Rays’ representative. That left Westberg alone. He might have been successful if he had been listed as a second baseman. He played about a third of his games there. But Westberg, Paredes, and Smith had fairly similar numbers, and there was no room for them all.
outfield
Willie Castro, Minnesota Twins
Colton Cowser, Baltimore Orioles
Brandon Nimmo, New York Mets
Castro didn’t exactly fit the All-Star voting mold. He played at least 20 games at five positions—second base, third base, shortstop, center field, and left field—and sometimes played multiple positions in a single game. Despite all that movement, he posted a 130 wRC+, the sixth-highest fWAR among qualified outfielders in either league. And yet he didn’t make the AL team. The same goes for Orioles rookie Cowzer (or his teammate Anthony Santander) and several other standout defenders (notably the Toronto Blue Jays’ Dalton Bashaw). NL outfielders were a bit more open, but Nimmo made at least a better case than any outfielder on an NL bench.
Brent Rooker circles the bases after hitting a three-run home run against the Orioles. (D. Ross Cameron / USA Today)
Designated hitter
Brent Rooker, Oakland A’s
David Frye was one of the most surprising players in the first half of the season. He made double-digit starts at catcher, left field, and designated hitter, threw several innings at first base, third base, and right field, and helped the Guardians maintain the top spot with the 10th-best wRC+ among players with at least 200 plate appearances. But Rooker posted similar offensive numbers (155 OPS+ to Frye’s 161) while getting nearly 100 more plate appearances and hitting more than twice as many home runs (18 vs. 8).
Starting pitcher
Ronel Blanco, Houston Astros
Jack Flaherty, Detroit Tigers
Louis Gill, New York Yankees
George Kirby, Seattle Mariners
Christopher Sanchez, Philadelphia Phillies
If you last checked three weeks ago, you would have thought Gil would make the AL staff. As of mid-June, he had a 2.03 ERA in 14 starts and looked like a solid replacement for the injured Gerrit Cole at the top of the Yankees’ rotation. But Gil’s last three starts (which began Sunday night against the Red Sox) have resulted in three consecutive losses and a 14.90 ERA, which lowered his season ERA to 3.41, 15th-best in the AL. Four starting pitchers with ERAs under 3.00 (Blanco, Sánchez, Brady Singer of the Kansas City Royals, Jake Irvin of the Nationals) have not made any team. Kirby led the majors in strikeout-to-walk ratio and Flaherty led the xFIP, and he also finished third in strikeout rate and fourth in expected ERA. But inevitably, some of the top starters will opt out, which means some of the initially overlooked players could end up sticking around.
Go deeper
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reliefer
Trevor Megill, Milwaukee Brewers
The top-place Brewers added two players to their NL starting lineup, but none to their bench (three infielders were considered) and none to their bullpen (which had the fourth-best bullpen ERA in the majors). Closer Magill and setter-upman Brian Hudson finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in Win Probability Added, and either would have been a legitimate addition, but the NL vote chose two non-closers (Matt Strahm and Jeff Hoffman of the Philadelphia Phillies) and left the league with five of its six at-large spots to find the sole representative from the Mets (Pete Alonso), Nationals (Abrams), St. Louis Cardinals (Ryan Helsley), Chicago Cubs (Shota Imanaga) and Miami Marlins (Tanner Scott). The NL’s only at-large pick went to Webb.
(Photo above of Francisco Lindor: Nuccio DiNuzzo / Getty Images)
