So many choices!
I’m not the most connected baseball writer out there, but I am able to break a little bit of news: the San Francisco Giants will have an All-Star in 2025. You heard it here first! Make sure to cite me as the source in five months.
The Giants will have an All-Star because of the funny rule — adored my some, loathed by others (guilty) — that each team must have a representative at the Midsummer Classic. That means that, if the Giants are mediocre through and through, they’ll at least get a pity invite.
Last year they didn’t get a pity invite, because they had two All-Stars (Logan Webb and Heliot Ramos), meaning both were there strictly on merit. That very much might happen again this year. They might even have three or four!
Or they may just have one selection, pity or otherwise. So who will it be?
Predicting All-Stars is far more difficult than in, say, the NBA, and you need only look at the Giants’ best candidates to see that on full display.
Webb may have earned Cy Young votes three years running, but his appearance in July was his first All-Star Game. Matt Chapman may have earned MVP votes and won his fifth Gold Glove last year, while being one of the best players in the sport, but he’s only been an All-Star one time, and it was back before you knew about a word that starts with “co” and ends with “vid.” Willy Adames may have been given the biggest contract in franchise history to help turn things around, but he’s yet to experience the glory of the All-Star Game, even once.
Still and all, those are great bets if you had to pick a player.
Oftentimes, though, an All-Star comes out of nowhere. This time last year, the consensus was that Heliot Ramos might have a future as an Austin Slater-esque platoon outfielder for another organization. Less than half a year later, he was an All-Star. Camilo Doval was a slightly out-of-control reliever when he came up in late 2021 and, less than two years later, was an All-Star next to his teammate Alex Cobb, who made the team for the first time a few months before his 35th birthday. And while not with the Giants, Justin Verlander was a 39 year old returning from Tommy John surgery when he made the 2022 All-Star Game.
It could be any of those names, except for Cobb (hell, maybe even Cobb, trades happen). It could by Ryan Walker or Tyler Rogers, who will likely be deserving. Could Mike Yastrzemski have a first-half pop and get the All-Star nod that was denied to him by the 2020 season? Is Jung Hoo Lee as good at baseball as he is at being awesome? Will Patrick Bailey’s elite defense be rewarded, or can his offense catch up to it? Will Tyler Fitzgerald’s emergence continue? Can Kyle Harrison or Hayden Birdsong take a leap? How early does Bryce Eldridge need to be called up to have a chance?
Anyway, I’m going with Walker, Chapman, and Bailey.