Lack of All-Star support for surprise Astros breakout shows how broken the system is

For the first three years of his MLB career, Jake Meyers was perhaps the epitome of a fourth outfielder. He was good enough to earn some playing time for the Houston Astros (and even had a nice little breakout performance for them in the postseason in 2021), but wasn’t good enough to nail down an everyday spot in the lineup. 

Things have changed a lot since then. Meyers entered Monday hitting .310 across 76 games for the Astros and was worth 2.0 bWAR — the third-highest mark among Astros position players. And while that strong play has helped the Astros maintain their hold on first place in the American League West, it hasn’t resulted in Meyers gaining a ton of recognition in this year’s All-Star voting. 

Lack of All-Star support for surprise Astros breakout shows how broken the system is

On Monday, MLB announced the newest update in this year’s All-Star voting, where Meyers wasn’t even ranked among the top American League outfielders. So, barring some kind of miracle or calamitous event, it seems like there’s no way that Meyers will appear in this year’s Midsummer Classic. 

While he’s only hit three home runs and driven in 20 runs, he’s hit at the bottom of the order for almost all of the year (he moved up to the No. 2 spot in the batting order for the first time this year on Sunday), so he hasn’t had a ton of opportunities with a lot of runners on base. 

And Meyers’ impact on the Astros’ lineup goes beyond the counting stats. He’s posted seven Outs Above Average this year (which is tied for the seventh-best mark in baseball among outfielders), and is hitting .348 with 13 RBI in high-leverage situations.

Meyers has been so good in the field and clutch at the plate, which are two things that should be doing wonders to his All-Star case. Instead he’s getting left behind . 

It is worth pointing out that he’s facing some stiff competition. Aaron Judge is the leading the race (and is on track to be the leading vote-getter in the American League), while Riley Greene, Javier Báez, Mike Trout and Steven Kwan are on-pace to advance to Phase 2 of the voting. 

Báez’s name is the most surprising of the players on that list considering he’d been horrible in the past three years and had never been a full-time outfielder, but he’s been a renaissance for the first-place Tigers. The same can be said for Greene, who was a first-time All-Star last year.

Trout’s missed a good portion of the year with a left knee injury, but he’s mashed 12 home runs in 51 games and is one of the faces of the league, so it makes sense that he’s gotten as many votes as he has. And lastly there’s Kwan, who isn’t hitting as well as he’s done in years prior but still has been worth 3.2 bWAR. 

Meyers being behind all of them in the voting is understandable considering they’re all former All-Stars who are (mostly) having better seasons than Meyers.  It’s when you look at the rest of the voting where things get interesting. 

The final four spots in the voting are filled by Cody Bellinger, Kerry Carpenter, George Springer and Julio Rodríguez. They’re all fine players, but none of them are more deserving of an All-Star berth than Meyers. 

While Bellinger’s turned things around after a slow start to the season, he’s still only hitting .254 and has been worth 1.3 bWAR. Both Carpenter and Springer have shown more power than Meyers, but they’ve both only been worth 0.3 bWAR And while that’s not the end all, be all of determining a player’s value, it does provide a good look into how Meyers is able to impact the game in ways that they’re not. 

And it’s not like the Astros will be in a position where Meyers could sneak in as their lone representative. Both Jose Altuve and Jeremy Peña are in a spot to earn a nod at their positions, while Hunter Brown and Framber Valdez both have inside shots toward an All-Star nod (pitchers are selected through a combination of player ballots and choices made by the Commissioner's Office). 

However, even though Meyers won’t be an All-Star this year, it doesn’t take away from the fantastic start that he’s had to this season.

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