I’ve been thinking a lot about All-Star lineups this week. They’re not bad, but they’re weird, and they’re missing some of the biggest names in sports. That’s right. There’s been a lot of turnover on the WAR leaderboards this year, as Ben Clemens pointed out last month, and that’s given us plenty of new stories — many of which will be rightly celebrated at the annual halftime show next week.
Still, this feels like it should matter in some way beyond the show. And so I look at the list, looking for a narrative to call. One thing I noticed is that, of the top 25 hitters featured by FanGraphs Depth Charts, 17 did not make the All-Star team. Of those, eight are in competitive western races.
Indeed, the stars have dimmed in the West. The way these players perform after the break can determine the nature of the season to come.
The AL West
Cal Raleigh and Julio Rodríguez were each listed as top five hitters by MPI entering the season. For them, the Mariners started the season as slight favorites to advance to the World Series from the American League. While that’s still technically true, neither Raleigh nor Rodríguez have played well enough to be in Philadelphia next week. Randy Arozarena is an All-Star for Seattle instead.
Raleigh has had a rough year. He advanced to the World Baseball Classic (which was the least news he’s ever made in this tournament) and carried that slack early in the season. Just when he seemed to be coming out of it, as he hit five runs in seven games at the end of April, he suffered an inexplicable injury to his side. After a long 0-for, he agreed to spend a month on the injured list.
He has improved since his return, although the quality was not high. He posted a 62 wRC+ in 181 plate appearances before going on the injured list; has put up a 95 wRC+ in 78 plate appearances since returning. (This, like the other stats cited in this piece, is updated as of Wednesday morning) Even at his best, Raleigh is a big hitter, hoping to win trades between strikeouts and homers. He hasn’t so far this year.
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Things weren’t so bad for Rodríguez, at least until last week. This was actually shaping up to be one of his better seasons at the plate; the notoriously slow-starter posted a 124 wRC+ in May. But at the same time, he found himself at the bottom of the Outs Above Average leaderboard among middle infielders. As I wrote for Lookout Landing last month, this looked less like a skill change and more like a bunch of negatives thrown together. But the defensive breakdown was enough to sink his WAR to good, and it’s nowhere near the top 10.
Rodríguez bounced back defensively in June and actually posted the most OAA among center fielders in the month. At the same time, he slept on the plate for several weeks. Just as he was starting to heat up again, putting everything together and threatening a late All-Star bid, Nolan Schanuel hit him in the back of the head as he tried to force out a second. Rodríguez is currently on the injured list due to a concussion.
The Mariners made the FanGraphs Depth Charts 12.4 WAR from their top two stars. They are on track to get 4.4 from the duo. But their chances of winning the AL West and the American League haven’t changed much, because the stars of their closest rivals haven’t fared as well.
The depth charts were almost identical to Wyatt Langford and Corey Seager at the start of the season. Still, both Rangers ranked in the top 25 in WAR, making them the best batter duos in the majors. They were expected to average 9.3 WAR. They are at a speed of 3.8. Jacob Latz is a Texas All-Star.
Langford’s season has been unlucky. After a well-rounded, 4-WAR season in 2025, he was positioned as one of the game’s next stars. That looks to be about right when he’s healthy this year. He has a wRC+ of 129 while maintaining solid defense in the outfield and baserunning, and is playing at a 7-WAR-per-650-plate-appearance pace – even better than he was projected for at the start of the season.
But Langford missed all of May with a forearm strain. And after returning from a sweltering June, he pulled a hamstring in his left leg while pulling out two legs. The latest injury isn’t thought to be too serious – he could work this week – but it’s the sixth outing on the injured list for Langford, who is just 24 years old.
That’s a good segue into our next topic: Corey Seager. It’s the same story as before. Seager has been a dominant player for more than a decade, but he has never been able to stay healthy for long. This year, he has made three trips to the injured list: once for back inflammation, once for concussions, and again last week for the same back inflammation. It’s unclear how long the latter position will last him, but when he plays this year, Seager has a career-low 87 wRC+ and a career-high 26.9% strikeout rate. The Rangers only played 25 games with Langford and Seager on the roster.
Without their best players (and sometimes even with them), the Mariners and Rangers are each treading water, gasping just above .500. They are strangely similar. Both have good pitching staffs, middling lineups, porous defenses, and very stressful home parks in the majors. Our Playoff Odds still favor the Mariners, but the race will likely be won by whichever team gets something — anything — without a star all-around.
NL West (ern Wild Card)
The same strength exists in three teams in the National League West, although one of these teams is the Dodgers, who seem to be untroubled by the slow starts of Kyle Tucker and Mookie Betts. They lead the division by 14 games over the Padres and Diamondbacks. Both teams are .500 and fighting for a Wild Card spot, despite expectations from their top hitters.
Let’s start with the Padres and Fernando Tatis Jr. He entered the season with a career 137 wRC+ and was projected by the Depth Charts for something similar, making his 105 wRC+ thus far a bit disappointing. That said, Tatis is the first player I mentioned today who seems to be on the rise. His season line was dipped by an early funk — he didn’t hit his first home run until May 30 — but that slump was a lot weirder than it was, as MLB.com’s Mike Petriello wrote at the time. Tatis was walking and hitting at normal rates, and he was still in strong contact with her. But for whatever reason, he struggled to pull the ball and couldn’t buy another base hit to the opposite field. His batting chart has looked normal since June 1st, and he has a 130 wRC+ to show for it.
The outlook is pretty good for Jackson Merrill, who has been consistently awful at the plate all season, with a 75 wRC+. He still hits the ball hard, speaks well, and the level of communication is good enough. Just not enough to make 0.26 BB/K. The method does not work. He’s always in a big hurry, but the whiffs are concerning. And look, it’s understandable. Merrill is 23 years old and has spent much of the past year going back and forth on the injured list. I don’t care if Merrill suddenly disappears from the big shows – he does a lot of other things well.
But the Padres started the year as something of a playoff contender. And between Tatis’ early slump and Merrill’s continued slump, San Diego is 29th in the majors with an 88 wRC+. Of course there are other criminals here (like Manny Machado). But the Padres were expected to get 10.1 WAR from their top two players, and the duo is on pace for 4.4 WAR. That will need to change once they get serious about chasing the… Marlins in the NL Wild Card standings.
Now, the Diamondbacks don’t fit my story neatly. Geraldo Perdomo and Ketel Marte are averaging a combined 9.5 WAR, and are averaging 7.7. That’s great! And when you consider that Corbin Carroll was also featured in the top 25 and played exactly to his abilities, it’s hard to blame the Snakes’ lack of star power.
The Depth Charts didn’t expect Perdomo to repeat his 7.1-WAR, 138-wRC+ season from last year, putting him at a respectable 4.8 WAR and 119 wRC+. Currently, he has a 2.0 WAR and a 102 wRC+, which is his career high. He is still a slow bowler who does not strike; he is still a patient hitter who pulls many places. But the great power we saw last year has not caught on. He makes a lot of contact on the ground, which is the only bad place to hit the ball at Chase Field. It’s a shame because his defense has taken another step forward this year, and he could challenge for the NL’s Golden Glove in the short term.
The Diamondbacks are also hoping to get more from Ketel Marte. He posted a 149 wRC+ over the past two seasons, and this year he posted a 118 wRC+ in the first half. Unlike Perdomo, Marte’s power is still there, and he’s making tons of big connections. But he’s developed a relationship for throwing out sliders in the zone, and that’s put a big ding in the walk rate that once supported his streak between homers. Like Tatis, however, Marte’s season streak is still hampered by a big early slump, and he has a 134 wRC+ since May 1.
Also, the Diamondbacks don’t have to worry nearly as much about the top of their lineup as the Padres. But we have seen Marte and Perdomo perform at very high levels in the past. And that might be what it takes for Arizona to get back into the NL Wild Card race in the second half.
