The Pirates Made All-Star Game History for the Wrong Reason

Come the all-star game, there's always at least some inevitable dialogue of should every team have a representative.

There are always going to be a couple garbage teams that maybe their all-star isn't quite up to snuff with some of the other people who are there.

Maybe you have some really good players who got snubbed because that player had to be an all-star.

I am very much pro every team deserves an all-star.

Because even whenever you are a fan of a garbage team, you know that you are going to have your guy in that game.

And it's not guaranteed that he will be in the game.

Maybe you just send a bench player.

Maybe you send a relief pitcher.

But the idea is enough to allure you into the game.

The Pirates have two all-stars this year.

Paul Skenes and Braxton Ashcraft.

There are no hitters.

There are no relief pitchers.

It is two starting pitchers who will not be appearing in the game.

And that is a shame for a multitude of reasons.

Good morning and welcome to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

And happy all-star game.

This is one of my favorite days of the baseball season.

I know it's an exhibition.

I like the history that comes with the all-star game.

And knowing that these players will forever be etched alongside some of the greats like Ted Williams and Willie Mays and Frank Robinson and Pedro Martinez and all those guys from different generations.

We all have this beautiful game as a touchstone of not only the game's history but America's history.

And it is exciting to see today's players get to etch their names alongside some of those other greats.

The Pirates have two players going this year.

They will not pitch in this game.

Paul Skenes, he pitched on Sunday.

Pitchers who go on Sunday just aren't available.

It doesn't line up.

And then Braxton Ashcraft, after the rain out on Friday, he pitched on Saturday.

He's also not going to pitch.

And let me start off by saying in both of these cases, that is 100% fine.

They don't have to pitch in the game.

Especially with Braxton Ashcraft who is coming off of a year where he threw more innings than he ever threw before in his life.

And he is going to obliterate that record this year.

You have to be very mindful with his workload.

It would have been great to see him go out and pitch like the third or fourth inning.

I totally get why he isn't.

You have to be mindful.

It doesn't perfectly line up with his schedule.

So why push it?

He still gets to go there, stand on the line, doff his cap to the home crowd.

And to America on TV.

That is perfectly fine.

And Paul Skenes pitched on Sunday.

There's just no way around it.

He was not going to be available for this game.

So in both cases, it's disappointing, but I get it.

I can't get over that there is not a hitter going to this All-Star game.

Bryan Reynolds or Brandon Lowe.

It should have been at least one of them.

And we talked not that long ago, whenever the All-Star Rosses were announced, how Reynolds had more war than two-thirds of the field whenever the announcement was made.

And Brandon Lowe was pretty much right there.

And Brandon Lowe was also leading second baseman in home runs and RBI.

And yeah, it stinks.

It stinks that neither one of them got the nod.

Bryan Reynolds is having a better year this year than he did in the first half of 2024, whenever he was named an All-Star.

Like he has four fewer homers, two fewer RBI, but a lot more runs, a better OPS.

He is having a better year this season.

And Brandon Lowe, we have talked about, this might be the best season for a Pirates second baseman ever, whenever this is all said and done.

But you could have made a case for Spencer Horwitz before he got hurt.

You could have made a case for Oneil Cruz before he got hurt.

Someone like Esmerlyn Valdez, as great as he's been, of course he's not going to get any consideration.

He's doing it all right now.

But we saw Misiorowski get a nod at the end of last year.

I get it's a completely different case.

I'm not saying Esmerlyn Valdez should have been an All-Star.

But I'm saying someone should have been an All-Star.

Because this is a historic snub.

The All-Star game started in 1933.

In every year, the game's top offense by runs scored sent at least one rep to the All-Star game.

They always sent at least one hitter.

The game's best offense always had at least one hitter representing, again, the game's best offense.

The Pirates are tied for runs scored at the All-Star break with the Nationals.

They do not have an All-Star hitter.

It's the first time in All-Star game history.

I'm going to keep hammering that home because I scrolled through all, what is it, 93, 94 All-Star games histories just to look.

And every single time, the game's top offense had a representative.

I want to give a shout-out to two years that I thought were actually close.

1983, the Twins sent one All-Star.

It was Gary Ward, an outfielder.

They meet the criteria.

And then the 1940 Tigers, who had five hitters who received MVP votes that year, and that team won the pennant.

They only sent Hank Greenberg and a couple pitchers.

But again, they still sent a position player.

And whenever you think of, like, the historically great offenses, like the Yankees of the 30s, the Dodgers and Yankees of the 50s, like you could always, the Red Sox of the 40s, you could always be like, yeah, Ted Williams was always an All-Star.

And Willie Mays was always an All-Star.

Lou Gehrig was always an All-Star.

You can go through those type of years like that.

Or contemporaries and be like, Jose Altuve, Mike Trout, they're always All-Stars.

I get that.

And this offense maybe doesn't have such a clear-cut fan favorite.

Of course you can't tell the history of the 2026 season without this guy type of guys.

This is a deep offense.

This is an offense that gets production from a lot of other people.

And there isn't, a figurehead along the lines of, like, a Frank Robinson or Alex Rodriguez or anything like that.

I get that.

They still had players who were very much deserving of this honor who got snubbed.

And the end result is Pittsburgh has an All-Star game where, guaranteed, they will have no representation.

It doesn't matter that they have the rating Cy Young.

It doesn't matter that they have the game's top offense.

No pirate will appear in this game.

We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back.

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I would like to see all-star rosters get expanded a little more because we have had expansion in our most baseball fans' lifetime.

Maybe it's time to expand it a little further.

Like, after the 7-7 tie in 2003, they expanded a little more.

They carried more pitchers.

2010, they expanded it again.

Major League Baseball would like to do some round of expansion in the not-so-distant future.

I really do feel that every team should have a representative.

I don't want to take that away, but game needs to do better at recognizing, especially position players.

The pitchers with guys getting hurt, guys, it just doesn't line up with their schedule.

I think that'll naturally take care of itself.

It's hitting.

That's the issue right now.

And whenever we first talked about how Brandon Lowe and Reynolds were snubbed, I brought up like, hey, I'm not really optimistic about Brandon Lowe making this team.

Because there aren't a lot of second basemen who get, who get replaced this late into the process.

And even if he was, there are other candidates here.

There are a lot of good players across the league who are not going to be all-star game reps.

And whenever you're a kid, whenever you're 12 years old, you weren't, you didn't ask to be born in a place like Pittsburgh necessarily.

You became a Pirates fan because you were from Pittsburgh and you were a baseball fan.

And it's like, you know what?

Yeah, I would like to see Jack Wilson be recognized among the game's elites.

He deserved it.

He got the odd.

He got the nod.

Put him on there.

And even if it isn't like a clear-cut, Jack Wilson type year, you'd like to see a Mike Williams or an Evan Meek or a Matt Capps, get the nod.

And there's a lot of stuff like that really does foster a welcoming environment for all baseball fans into this one day.

Whenever half the league is, unified and you are competing against the other half of the league.

And that's really cool.

It's part of our game's history.

And you like to see the best be represented and for the best to play.

And for the Pirates who have the top offense in the National League, not having a rep is disappointing.

A quick aside, I did look.

when were the other times in the All-Star Game's history where the Pirates led all of baseball and runs scored at the break?

And there were two other times.

It was 1960 and 1971.

Now, those were some pretty historic years in baseball history and in Pirates history.

And I don't want to imply that this team is now going to win the World Series.

They have a lot to fix on the pitching side if they are going to do that, especially the bullpen.

But this is a year that has the potential to be special in Pittsburgh baseball history.

But it still has that potential.

We're in a spot that even, just breaking a decade-long postseason curse and getting in there will make this a memorable team.

And you like those memorable teams to have figureheads who are leading the way.

And you would like to see the league represent those figureheads properly.

I don't think that's the case in 2026.

Thank you so much for listening to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe wherever you find podcasts or check us out on YouTube if you want to see my smiling face.

Thank you so much for listening.

Enjoy the All-Star Game.

We will talk again tomorrow.

All right, that wraps up this episode of North Shore Nine.

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