The All-Star selection process has only produced three Orioles for the team. Really?
For most of my adult life, the idea of the Orioles having three players who are All-Stars in that season was an unimaginable bounty. Here in 2024, with the O’s having had four a year ago, and following up on their 101-win season of 2023 by playing at a 103-win pace so far, the Orioles having three All-Stars is still fun, but it’s also a familiar feeling of egregious disrespect for Baltimore sports fans. Only three? Really, now.
In the same spirit in which I offered a completely objective analysis of which Orioles to vote for to go to the All-Star Game, let’s take a look at the Orioles players who didn’t end up making the game, compare them to the ones who did, and figure out who was snubbed and who wasn’t.
As a reminder, the process that generated the rosters started with the fan vote choosing the starters, a vote among the players selecting most of the reserves and most of the pitchers, and the commissioner’s office rounding out each league’s roster with several more selections that, if needed, ensure that there is at least one All-Star per team.
Designated Hitter
The Oriole – Ryan O’Hearn
Hard as it is to believe now, O’Hearn was nearly indistinguishable before spring training a year ago from a pack of players that also included Franchy Cordero, Lewin Diaz, and Josh Lester. It tells you something about how bad he was in Kansas City over multiple years that even after putting up 1.2 WAR a year ago and 1.8 WAR so far in 2024, he’s still only at 0.2 for his career.
O’Hearn is batting even better than last year in a season where the rest of the league is batting worse than a year ago; his 134 OPS+ is third-best among regular Orioles, trailing only Henderson and Jordan Westburg.
The Competition – David Fry
Fry is one of the more out-of-nowhere success stories of the 2024 season, a player who was a fine enough hitter as a 27-year-old rookie in two months last year who didn’t really have one consistent position. Here in 2024, he’s mashing, with a .920 OPS – 161 OPS+ – through 66 games played. These are impressive numbers. If Fry had batted enough to qualify for leaderboards, he’d be in the top 10 in MLB.
Fry is also not a designated hitter, having started just 14 games at the position.
The Verdict
No question that Fry should be an All-Star, but if there is going to be a specifically-listed DH reserve – which there is – then it shouldn’t be him. Gesturing towards actual objectivity rather than joking homerism, I will observe that the player who got snubbed harder than O’Hearn is Oakland’s Brent Rooker, who has DHed in 63 games with a 155 OPS+, has 90 more plate appearances than Fry, and who has the misfortune of having Mason Miller be the guy to benefit from the “we have to have an All-Star from each team” rule.
I give O’Hearn a 4/10 snub.
First Base
The Oriole – Ryan Mountcastle
When All-Star voting opened up, Mountcastle was the best first baseman in the American League up to that point, and second place wasn’t all that close. He just went nearly a full month between home runs and his batting split over the last 28 days is a .632 OPS. That’s some sandy ground on which to try to build an All-Star case.
The Competition – Josh Naylor
Cleveland has a whopping five All-Stars, which is something a team can pull off when a guy like Fry from above gets in there and also so does Naylor, whose batting line as a first baseman, currently .243/.313/.495, would be mostly unremarkable among first basemen in most other seasons to date. He has hit 21 homers, so good for him, but when a 1.1 bWAR first baseman is an All-Star, the people involved in that happening should be embarrassed.
The Verdict
Even with his month-long slump, Mountcastle is at 1.7 bWAR for the season. Even with his 21 homers, Naylor is at 1.1. That’s a snub, but not the kind of snub you should still be indignant about 20 years from now. 6/10 snub.
Third Base/Second Base
The Oriole – Jordan Westburg
With six games left to the break, Westburg is on pace for a 5-win season. He’s been remarkably consistent across each month this season, he shifts between two positions without losing a stride (okay, fine, the defensive metrics aren’t excited about him at 2B), and he’s a quiet but fun guy who is one of the best hitters on the team with the best record in the AL. He didn’t bring brand-name star power with him into the season but if he keeps things up at this level, he deserves to have it at this time next year.
The Competition – Rafael Devers, Isaac Paredes, Marcus Semien
It’s a tough field at third base. There’s no arguing against the starter, Cleveland’s José Ramirez, having beaten Westburg in phase 2 of the fan vote. Much as I prefer not to write nice things about Red Sox, Devers is OPSing .971 for the season, making him a top 3 hitter in the American League. Paredes is something of an underwhelming choice at only 1.9 bWAR for the season to date, but he’s the only guy on the Rays who’s close to deserving a spot, so there he is.
It’s too bad the process doesn’t allow for Westburg to be considered at second base, where he’s played 28 games. I mean, if Fry’s a DH, then Westburg’s a second baseman, right? (Fry was listed at DH for the fan voting.) Westburg’s performance is comparable to the starter, Jose Altuve, and he wins in a romp over the player-chosen reserve Semien, who has tanked even worse than Mountcastle over the last 28 days (.412 OPS).
The Verdict
I think Westburg is hosed in two different ways, first by Paredes getting the “one guy per team” boost into the mix and then again by the way that his flexibility actually costs him in a process that’s very rigid about what position you are. He rocks. This is a 10/10 snub. Torches and pitchforks.
Outfield
The Oriole – Anthony Santander
Slugging over .500 is something that should not be taken for granted in this year’s offense environment. Among AL outfielders, there are just four guys who’ve done it. One of them is Santander, and the other three are the guys voted in by the fans: Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Steven Kwan. His 23 dingers are tied for third among all AL batters and he’s one of only two players in MLB with 20+ homers to not be an All-Star. (The other, former Oriole Christian Walker, is probably the worst snub in the NL field.)
The Competition – Jarren Duran, Riley Greene, Kyle Tucker
Of these three reserve outfielders, the worst bWAR of the bunch is Tucker’s, which is 3.6. Even the lightest-hitting of these three guys, Duran, is at least on par with Santander’s batting, and every one of them offers more defensive value. This is a group of great players.
The Verdict
Sorry, Tony, but this is a 0/10 snub. You’ll have to see if you can hit 13 homers in May before doing the same again in June next year.
Relief Pitcher
The Oriole – Craig Kimbrel
With the season more than half over, it’s still kind of weird that Kimbrel is an Oriole, you know? Despite people thinking he was cooked after some postseason meltdowns last year, and despite a bad two weeks this season, Kimbrel is right there among the best closers in the game, sporting a 2.10 ERA that’s fifth-best among AL relievers with 10+ saves and a WHIP that’s fourth-best. These things are true and we probably all expect him to blow the save attempt every time he strides in from the bullpen. Those are some good numbers anyway.
The Competition – Clay Holmes
I would not have thought twice about the idea that Kimbrel should be an All-Star were it not for the inclusion of Holmes, the Yankees closer with a 3.00 ERA and a 1.306 WHIP up to this point. He’s been pretty good for the last two years before this, so if he’d been chosen by the players, I would have shrugged. However, this was reported to have been a commissioner’s office pick. There’s another one for the pile for those who believe in a league-level Yankee bias.
The Verdict
Even were we to limit the pool of possible All-Star relievers to guys who’ve been getting most of their team’s save chances – which we shouldn’t, because it was cool when Brad Brach, Darren O’Day, and Yennier Cano were All-Stars – I think the top snub is Seattle’s Andrés Muñoz. That team has only one All-Star, somehow.
Boston’s Kenley Jansen is at a similar snub level to Kimbrel; these are two guys with a bunch of All-Star teams already in their careers who have a strong case for one more this year. Kimbrel losing out while an undeserving Yankee is in makes this a 7/10 snub. Having said that, I will lose zero sleep over Kimbrel not pitching for the entire All-Star break.
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