MLB All-Star snaps at every position: Francisco Lindor, Luis Gil and more

Look, I know how these guys feel. Hereby The athletic, a handful of writers were chosen to wax poetic about the superstar players who made this year’s All-Star team. And the rest of us were left out, our rightful place on the roster scandalously overlooked due to a weird, overly complicated selection process.

We are the snores. And we are all in this together.

Here, then, is our non-all-star All-Star team, the most worthy players at each position who didn’t hear their names called Sunday night and weren’t selected — at least until now — for the midsummer classic.

Note: Starting position players are selected via fan voting, and players vote for eight pitchers plus one backup at each position. The league selects the final few players to finalize the rosters so that each 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 picked the right two guys behind the plate), but Bailey would have been a worthy addition (the league chose outfielder Heliot instead Ramos and top player Logan Webb as the representatives of the Giants). In terms of throwing and framing, Bailey is one of the best defensive catchers in baseball, and wRC+ puts him on par with Salvador Perez offensively. Bailey made his debut last year. He will make an All-Star team at some point.

First base

Christian Walker, Arizona Diamondbacks

A word of advice for anyone trying to make an All-Star team: Don’t try to play in the same league and position as Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman. These two were selected to their eighth All-Star teams this season. Walker has yet to make one. He has the third-most home runs in the NL (behind All-Star DHs Shohei Ohtani and Marcell Ozuna), and he’s 10th in the NL in wRC+ (but that’s still behind both Harper and Freeman). Walker could still make the team if Harper’s hamstring injury keeps him out of the All-Star Game, but the Phillies appear to expect Harper to return this week.

Second base

Brice Turang, Milwaukee Brewers

WAR isn’t a perfect metric, but it’s a useful shorthand for a player’s overall impact. According to Baseball Reference’s version of WAR, Turang is the fourth-best player in the entire National League. The FanGraphs version isn’t quite as optimistic, but he still ranks 20th in the NL, which is 30 spots higher — and over 1.5 WAR better — than NL second baseman Luis Arraez. Turang doesn’t have Arraez’s batting average, but he does have more power, more stolen bases and much better defensive qualities. However, the players chose Arraez.

Short stop

Francisco Lindor, New York Mets

If Philadelphia Phillies shortstop Trea Turner (who has missed significant time due to injury) had not been voted NL starter, there might have been room for Lindor, who ranks seventh in the league in fWAR. But Elly De La Cruz of the Cincinnati Reds (replacing the injured Mookie Betts) was chosen by the players, and the league selected C.J. Abrams as the Washington Nationals’ sole representative, leaving no room for Lindor or Willy Adames of the Milwaukee Brewers. A total of 40 players have played at least 2.5 fWAR so far this season, and nine of those are shortstops (11 if you count multi-positional Willi Castro of the Minnesota Twins and Josh Smith of the Texas Rangers). Shortstop snubs were inevitable, even with seven chosen between the two rosters.

Third base

Jordan Westburg, Baltimore Orioles

Five third basemen rank in the top 18 in American League fWAR, and there simply wasn’t room for all of them on the roster. The fans voted for José Ramírez, the players voted for Rafael Devers and the league chose Isaac Paredes to represent the Tampa Bay Rays. As a result, Westburg remained the odd one out. He might have been able to make it if he had been listed as a second baseman — he played about a third of his games at second — but Westburg, Paredes and Smith have pretty similar numbers, and there just wasn’t room for all of them.

Outfield

Willi Castro, Minnesota Twins
Colton Cowser, Baltimore Orioles
Brandon Nimmo, New York Mets

Castro doesn’t fit neatly into an All-Star ballot. He has played at least 20 games at five different positions – second base, third base, shortstop, center field, left field – sometimes playing multiple spots in one game. Despite all that moving, he has produced a 130 wRC+ and the sixth-highest fWAR among all qualified outfielders in both leagues. Still, he didn’t make the AL team. Nor do Orioles rookie Cowser (or his teammate, Anthony Santander) and a number of defensive standouts (notably Daulton Varsho of the Toronto Blue Jays). The NL outfield was a little wider open, but Nimmo had at least as good a case as any outfielder on the NL bench.

Designated hitter

Brent Rooker, Oakland A’s

David Fry is one of the most surprising stars of the first half. He has made double figures at catcher, left field and design hitter – with a handful of innings at first base, third base and right field – and he has helped keep the Guardians in first place with the 10th best wRC+ among players with at least 200 plate appearances. However, Rooker has similar offensive numbers (155 OPS+ to Fry’s 161) while getting nearly 100 more plate appearances and hitting more than twice as many home runs (18 to 8).

Starting pitchers

Ronel Blanco, Houston Astros
Jack Flaherty, Detroit Tigers
Luis Gil, New York Yankees
George Kirby, Seattle Mariners
Cristopher Sánchez, Philadelphia Phillies

If you last checked in three weeks ago, you would have assumed Gil was a lock for the AL staff. As of mid-June, he had a 2.03 ERA through 14 starts and looked like a worthy replacement for the injured Gerrit Cole atop the Yankees’ rotation. But Gil’s past three starts — heading into a Sunday night game against the Red Sox — have resulted in three straight losses and a 14.90 ERA, dropping his season ERA to 3.41, 15th best in the AL. Four starters with an ERA under 3.00 failed to make it to either team (Blanco, Sánchez, Brady Singer of the Kansas City Royals and Jake Irvin of the Nationals). The same goes for the major league leader in strikeout-to-walk ratio (Kirby) and the leader in xFIP (Flaherty), who also has the third-best strikeout rate and fourth-best expected ERA. However, it is inevitable that a few select starters will opt out, meaning that some of the initial rejections will eventually make it through.

Relief pitcher

Trevor Megill, Milwaukee Brewers

The first-place Brewers placed two players in the NL starting lineup, but no one on the bench (three of their infielders earned consideration) and no one in the bullpen (they have the fourth-best bullpen ERA in the majors). Closer Megill and setup man Bryan Hudson rank fifth and sixth in Win Probability Added, and either would have been warranted additions, but the NL Players’ Ballot selected two non-closers (Matt Strahm and Jeff Hoffman of the Philadelphia Phillies), meaning the league will use five of the six at-large spots to represent lone representatives of the Mets (Pete Alonso), Nationals (Abrams), St. Louis Cardinals (Ryan Helsley), Chicago Cubs (Shota Imanaga) and Miami Marlins ( Tanner Scott) ). The only real selection in the NL went to Webb.

(Top photo by Francisco Lindor: Nuccio DiNuzzo / Getty Images)