The 5 Best and 5 Worst MLB All-Star Career Stat Leaders Among Active Players
The 2024 MLB All-Star Game is here, and with it comes the latest chance for baseball's best and brightest to earn moments worthy of baseball lore.
They can, of course, do so in a good way or in a not-so-good way.
Let's consider both sides of the equation by looking at the five best and five worst All-Star Game performers among active players. Not all of them will be present for the latest iteration of the Midsummer Classic at Globe Life Field on Tuesday, but they're all still around and in their possession are various noteworthy All-Star Game statistics.
In this collection are several future Hall of Famers, but two of them notably sit at opposite ends of a certain spectrum. One is perhaps the best hitter in the history of the All-Star Game. The other might be the worst pitcher the game has ever known.
Intrigued? Then I suggest you read on.
Going in no particular order, we'll start with the best and conclude with the worst.
Note: Just as a reminder, there was no All-Star Game in 2020.
Best: CF Mike Trout, Los Angeles Angels
1 of 10
All-Star Selections: 11
Career Stats: 20 PA, 7 H, 2 HR, 4 R, 4 RBI, .412 AVG, .500 OBP, 1.500 SLG
Excluding 2020, this year marks the first time since he joined the Angels for a cup of coffee in 2011 that Mike Trout is not an All-Star. A bummer of the highest order, to be sure.
On the plus side, it means his All-Star Game resume can't get any tarnish on it.
As it is, it's arguably the shiniest there is. Beyond leading all active hitters for hits, runs, runs batted in and home runs, Trout's 1.500 OPS in the Midsummer Classic is the highest among all hitters who've ever taken at least 20 All-Star plate appearances.
Trout has won All-Star MVP honors twice, including for a game in which he doubled and tripled back in 2014. As for his two All-Star homers, they were both off Cy Young Award winners: Zack Greinke in 2015 and Jacob deGrom in 2018.
It's crazy to think that all of this constitutes one of the lesser accomplishments of Trout's career, but that will happen when a guy is a three-time MVP with more career WAR than Ken Griffey Jr. and Joe DiMaggio.
Best: 3B José Ramírez, Cleveland Guardians
2 of 10
All-Star Selections: 6
Career Stats: 9 PA, 5 H, 0 HR, 1 R, 0 RBI, .556 AVG, .556 OBP, .667 SLG
Trout aside, you may be surprised by how few modern hitters can also boast of having brandished their best sticks at the All-Star Game.
Among active hitters with even as many as 10 All-Star plate appearances, the next-best OPS is a mere .818 belonging to Andrew McCutchen. By comparison, that is about where Trout's All-Star OPS would be if you sliced it in half.
Thank goodness, then, for José Ramírez.
Fueled largely by 2-for-2 showings in the 2017 and 2022 All-Star Games, the Guardians' Energizer Bunny-like third baseman has five hits in nine at-bats to show for his career in the Midsummer Classic. That's a .556 average that ties him for third all-time among hitters who've taken at least nine All-Star plate appearances.
You'd think that a goose egg in the walk column would push Ramírez's All-Star OBP further down the leaderboard. And you'd be right...but only sort of, as he's actually tied for sixth on said leaderboard.
Best: RHP Max Scherzer, Texas Rangers
3 of 10
All-Star Selections: 8
Career Stats: 4 GS, 7.0 IP, 4 H (1 HR), 11 K, 1 BB, 1.29 ERA
The simple fact that Max Scherzer has started the All-Star Game four times is reason enough for him to be on this list.
The three-time Cy Young Award winner is one of only six pitchers to start that many times in the Midsummer Classic, and the other five are already members of the same institution Scherzer is destined to join: the Hall of Fame.
What's more, those 11 strikeouts are out of only 26 batters faced. That's a 42.3 strikeout percentage, the highest in All-Star Game history among pitchers who have faced at least 25 batters.
There's been real dominance at work here, as Scherzer has the second-most All-Star whiffs in the pitch tracking era and has struck out six MVP winners in the Midsummer Classic: Joey Votto, Jose Altuve, Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts, José Abreu and Paul Goldschmidt.
None of those guys felt a more Scherzer-y wrath than Votto. His whiff on a 100 mph fastball in 2013 accounts for the fourth-fastest pitch that Scherzer has thrown on any strikeout, ever.
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Best: LHP Chris Sale, Atlanta
4 of 10
All-Star Selections: 8
Career Stats: 3 GS, 8.0 IP, 8 H (1 HR), 8 K, 0 BB, 2.25 ERA
It's a nice feather in Chris Sale's cap that he has three All-Star Game starts in his own right, but what really sticks out here are the walks.
Or, more accurately, the lack of walks.
Sale isn't the only pitcher to never walk anyone in the All-Star Game, but zero free passes against 32 total batters faced makes for an impressive ratio. Only the late, great Roy Halladay faced more batters (35) without issuing a walk in the Midsummer Classic.
If Sale has any other claim to All-Star fame, it concerns just how silly he's made hitters look in the process of racking up those eight strikeouts.
A slider that felled Carlos Gonzalez way back in 2013 is the outer-most left-on-left pitch recorded on an All-Star Game strikeout since 2008. By way of a wicked slider in the dirt to Marcell Ozuna in 2017, Sale also owns one of the lowest pitches to record a strikeout.
Best: LHP Aroldis Chapman, Pittsburgh Pirates
5 of 10
All-Star Selections: 7
Career Stats: 3 GF, 4.0 IP, 0 H (0 HR), 8 K, 2 BB, 0.00 ERA
Please try to contain your surprise that Aroldis Chapman is one of the most unhittable pitchers in All-Star Game history.
Being unhittable is kind of his thing, as he's the all-time leader in strikeout rate (40.1 percent) and is second in batting average against (.167) among all pitchers who have ever recorded 700 innings in the major leagues.
So, of course his 61.5 strikeout percentage is the highest among pitchers who've faced at least 10 batters in the All-Star Game. Likewise, of course he's one of only three pitchers to ever face that many batters and not give up a hit.
The fireballing lefty otherwise owns the three fastest pitches ever recorded in the Midsummer Classic. Included among those are two 103 mph fastballs that went for strikeouts.
Chapman notably fanned the side during an appearance in the 2015 All-Star Game, all on 100 mph fastballs. He's the only pitcher on record to ever do that.
Worst: RHP Justin Verlander, Houston Astros
6 of 10
All-Star Selections: 9
Career Stats: 2 GS, 4.0 IP, 8 H (0 HR), 6 K, 2 BB, 13.50 ERA
In the long run, nobody is going to remember how Justin Verlander performed in the All-Star Game. Honestly, how many people even remember now is a good question.
Still, it's not good.
The three-time Cy Young Award winner and future Hall of Famer has more than two baserunners for every inning he's pitched in the Midsummer Classic, and then there's that 13.50 ERA. It's the highest ever among pitchers who've logged at least 20 batters faced and/or four innings.
To be fair, most of the damage came in one bad inning back in 2012. Verlander got the start for the American League and gave up five runs in the first inning, with three coming home on Pablo Sandoval's bases-loaded triple.
To be even fairer to Verlander, that wasn't even the worst thing Sandoval did to him that year.
Worst: RHP Craig Kimbrel, Baltimore Orioles
7 of 10
All-Star Selections: 9
Career Stats: 2 GF, 6.0 IP, 4 H (0 HR), 11 K, 5 BB, 1.50 ERA
Craig Kimbrel's All-Star Game record isn't bad so much as a perfect distillation of everything that makes him, well, Craig Kimbrel.
On the one hand, his 440 saves and especially his 39.3 strikeout percentage and .165 batting average against peg him as one of the greatest relief pitchers in history. The former ranks behind only Chapman. The latter ranks ahead of Chapman.
But on the other hand, the guy is liable to make you pull your darned hair out.
Walks have always been an issue for Kimbrel to some degree or another, and there have been no exceptions when he's performed All-Star Game duty. By walking five of the 27 batters he's ever faced, he's achieved the highest walk rate ever for any pitcher who's faced 20 or more batters in the Midsummer Classic.
Misleading? Hardly. Since 2008, no pitcher has thrown more pitches outside the strike zone in the All-Star Game than Kimbrel has.
Worst: 3B Nolan Arenado, St. Louis Cardinals
8 of 10
All-Star Selections: 8
Career Stats: 15 PA, 2 H, 0 HR, 0 R, 0 RBI, .143 AVG, .200 OBP, .143 SLG
There is one bright side of Nolan Arenado not earning an All-Star selection for the first time since 2014, and it's that his Midsummer Classic resume won't get any worse.
As it is, his .343 OPS is the ninth-lowest among hitters who've taken at least 15 All-Star plate appearances. The not-so-subtle indication there is that he simply hasn't taken good hacks, and you're about to find out just how true that is.
Consider, for example, Arenado's chase rate:
- Regular Season: 32.6 percent
- All-Star Game: 41.4 percent
And also his exit velocity:
Arenado does have one hard-hit out on his All-Star record, but the word "out" is more indicative than the word "hard-hit." It was on a 100.1 mph can-of-corn fly ball to Aaron Judge in 2018.
Worst: 2B Jose Altuve, Houston Astros
9 of 10
All-Star Selections: 9
Career Stats: 12 PA, 1 H, 0 HR, 0 R, 1 RBI, .091 AVG, .083 OBP, .091 SLG
In Jose Altuve's defense, he's no Terry Moore.
A member of the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1930s and 1940s, Moore took 10 at-bats in the All-Star Game and came up hitless in all 10 of them. In the annals of baseball history, that makes him a unicorn.
Still, a three-time batting champion like Altuve can't be happy with his own 1-for-11 showing in the Midsummer Classic. Along with Moore, he's one of only 16 hitters to ever take 10 All-Star at-bats and not even rise to the level of a .100 batting average.
Altuve's record is further plagued by the same issues as Arenado, in that he chases too much and doesn't hit the ball very hard. But this is also a case where sheer imagery better tells the tale, namely that of Scherzer and Carlos Martinez pantsing Altuve with nasty offerings.
Though Altuve was named an All-Star in 2021 and 2022 and again this year, he hasn't actually played in the game since 2018. And that will remain the case, as he wants to take this week to nurse a hand injury that he suffered just before the break on Friday.
Worst: C Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals
10 of 10
All-Star Selections: 9
Career Stats: 14 PA, 3 H, 1 HR, 3 R, 2 RBI, .214 AVG, .214 OBP, .429 SLG
What Kimbrel is to the pitching side of this equation, Salvador Perez is to the hitting side.
He doesn't have a bad All-Star Game resume, necessarily. To simply have been named an All-Star nine times is next-level stuff for a catcher, and many players would take an All-Star stat line that includes three hits and a home run.
It's just too bad he's also whiffed six times in 14 plate appearances. That amounts to a strikeout rate of 42.9 percent, the highest ever among hitters with at least 14 All-Star plate appearances.
In a related story, Perez has gone after balls outside the strike zone more often than not in the Midsummer Classic. Half of his strikeouts have otherwise come courtesy of Cy Young Award winners, notably Scherzer, Greinke and Corbin Burnes.
To this end, it's a mercy that this year's National League All-Star squad doesn't feature any Cy Young winners for Perez to do battle against.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
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