What the 2025 All-Star Game Starting Lineups Should’ve Looked Like
The Just Baseball community recently concluded our own All-Star voting, and the result was a more well-rounded lineup in both leagues.
The 2025 MLB All-Star fan voting came to a close yesterday, with the starting lineups announced in each league last night. There were no real surprises based on how the voting had been trending through the first phase, which had secured Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani spots for leading each respective league in total votes.
While most of the top players found their way into the starting lineup, with the rest likely to be added as reserves, there are a few notable exceptions of guys who should be starting the game.
As it comes every year with fan voting, some mistakes were definitely made, which we recently explored in a piece where we looked at each position and highlighted the players who were snubbed in the voting during each phase.
What we didn’t dive into, though, is what the perfect starting lineup would be in each league based on who the top performers have been this year, not just their popularity.
To best gauge what the vote should be, we polled our Discord, which has more commonly been referred to as the best baseball group chat in the world. From reviewing what our community submitted, compared to the general public’s results, it was pretty clear that our vote was more a reflection of who should be starting this year’s All-Star Game.
If you want to know exactly what the perfect starting lineups would have been for each league in this year’s All-Star Game, here are the results of what our audience said in the Discord poll.
To become a part of the Just Baseball community, you can use the following link to sign up for our Discord chat to cast your own vote in future polls: Just Baseball Discord Sign-Up Link
What the American League Starting Lineup Should Be
When reviewing this starting lineup in comparison to the actual vote, there aren’t actually too many differences. In fact, seven of the nine positions are the same, and we added a spot for who the starting pitcher should be (which is not typically voted on by fans), and to no one’s surprise, Tarik Skubal won the vote.
Going around the diamond, the following positions were the same in the actual vote as what we came up with by polling our Discord.
- Catcher: Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners
- Second Base: Gleyber Torres, Detroit Tigers
- Shortstop: Jacob Wilson, Athletics
- Third Base: Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians
- Designated Hitter: Ryan O’Hearn, Baltimore Orioles
- Outfield: Aaron Judge, New York Yankees
- Outfield: Riley Greene, Detroit Tigers
Anyone who has eyes knows that Cal Raleigh deserves to be starting the game, as he has been the best catcher in baseball this year, and it is not even close. At what is a weak position of second base in the AL, Gleyber Torres clearly deserves a spot for his work on the best team in the American League in the first half, the Detroit Tigers.
Jacob Wilson edged out last year’s AL MVP runner-up Bobby Witt Jr. in both the general fan vote and our Discord, as the A’s rookie shortstop has set the league on fire to start this season, and is currently in a battle with Aaron Judge for a batting title.
Perennial All-Star starters Jose Ramirez and Aaron Judge are both easy choices, and Riley Greene has taken the leap into stardom this season and deserves to make his All-Star Game debut.
Finally, with Rafael Devers being traded to the National League, a spot opened up for Ryan O’Hearn to make his All-Star debut in the starting lineup as the American League DH.
Notable Snubs in the AL Starting Lineup
There are a few notable mistakes made in this year’s voting for the AL starters, and they both come down to small-market teams not getting enough fan support to propel worthy All-Stars.
We’ll start with first base, where Vladimir Guerrero Jr. will be starting the game for the fourth time in the last five years. Vladi has dominated the voting at that position, and this year was no different. Through the first phase of the voting it was Vladi and Paul Goldschmidt who advanced to the final round, where Guerrero was rightfully voted the starter.
However, while he was more deserving than Goldschmidt, it is a first baseman who didn’t even make it into the final round of voting that deserves to be this year’s starter. Jonathan Aranda is enjoying a breakout season for the Tampa Bay Rays, which should result in an All-Star selection.
The 27-year-old is hitting .320/.401/.486 through his first 82 games, with an AL-best 153 wRC+ among first basemen. Aranda should be starting the game if we were going with the best possible player, but if we are looking to showcase the stars in the league, it is hard to argue too much with the pick for Vladi.
With all that said, it is much harder to argue for the merits of Javier Baez starting in the All-Star Game, despite the feel-good story of his redemption arc.
This is the typical case of a team that has been red-hot in the first half, drawing a huge wave of support from their fan base. Baez has been good this year, posting a 119 wRC+ that is far and away his best mark in a Tigers uniform.
His defensive versatility has been crucial, as he started the year playing a great defensive center field, before more recently settling back in over at shortstop. Seeing a two-time All-Star get his third nod, and his first in over five years is very cool, but it in turn snubs a much better player.
Byron Buxton has been the best center fielder in the American League this year, and it is not particularly close. Across his first 69 games played, Buxton is nearly halfway to a 40-30 season, with 19 home runs and 15 stolen bases already.
He is playing strong defense and has the best wRC+among all qualified center fielders in Major League Baseball at 145. In a few weeks, we are going to release our All-MLB team for the first half, and there is every chance that Buxton could give Pete Crow-Armstrong a run for his money as the best all-around center fielder in baseball so far in 2025.
If there is one egregious mistake in this year’s fan voting, it is that Buxton will be sitting on the bench when Javier Baez runs out to get the All-Star Game start in center field for the American League.
What the National League Starting Lineup Should Be
When it comes to the National League side of the ballot, our Discord has found way more problems with the general fan vote than what we saw for the American League. Of the nine spots on the lineup card, only five were the same between the general vote and our Discord.
- Catcher: Will Smith, Los Angeles Dodgers
- Second Base: Ketel Marte, Arizona Diamondbacks
- Designated Hitter: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers
- Outfield: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs
- Outfield: Kyle Ticker, Chicago Cubs
For as long as Shohei Ohtani is playing baseball for the Dodgers, you can just pencil him into the starting lineup at the DH spot. It was easy for our Discord to agree on that, as well as the fact that Will Smith and Ketel Marte are clearly the best at their respective positions.
Finally, the Cubs outfield deserves all of the representation it is going to get at this year’s All-Star game, with Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong deservedly winning the vote. Tucker and PCA are the only two players in the NL, other than Ohtani, who have crossed over the 4-win threshold by fWAR.
Notable Snubs in the NL Starting Lineup
The New York Mets are both the beneficiaries of the fan vote at one position, while being the victims of it at another. If you look at the stats this season, a case could be made for either Elly De La Cruz, or Trea Turner to be the starting shortstop for the National League.
De La Cruz, in particular, has a strong case based on leading all NL shortstops in home runs (18) and stolen bases (22), while trailing only CJ Abrams in wRC+ (126). Having been red-hot lately, De La Cruz is looking like the best shortstop in the National League at the moment, and that is why our Discord gave him the nod over Lindor or Turner.
With all of that said, Lindor is coming of a season where he finished runner-up to Ohtani in the NL MVP and he led his team to Game 6 of the NLCS. Over the past three seasons, Lindor is pacing all NL shortstops in WAR by four wins.
During that time, he’s led all NL shortstops in home runs by a wide margin (81 to Willy Adames’ 66) and in RBIs. He only trails Dansby Swanson and Ezequiel Tovar in OAA, with his 28 OAA since 2023 ranking as the 6th-best mark in all of baseball.
Elly has been slightly better this year, but no one will bat an eye at Lindor running out to shortstop to start the All-Star game for the National League.
As we said, the fan voting giveth and it taketh away for the Mets, as there is a real case to be made that Pete Alonso should be starting over Freddie Freeman. Alonso has never started the All-Star Game, although he is about to make his fifth appearance when he is inevitably selected as a reserve.
Alonso leads all NL first basemen in wRC+, home runs, and RBIs, trailing only Matt Olson for the NL lead in fWAR. Alonso’s 18 home runs and 66 RBIs far outmatch the 10 home runs and 44 RBIs of Freeman. He also has Freddie in OPS by over 25 points.
At the end of the year, there is every chance that Freeman finds his way to having the best season of any NL first baseman. For now, though, Alonso has been better.
The last two snubs are the most glaring on the National League side, as two standout performers from small market teams were left off the voting after phase 1.
You can make a case that James Wood has been the best hitter among NL outfielders this season. He is tied with Kyle Tucker for the league lead in wRC+ at 155, and is currently leading all NL outfielders with 22 home runs and 65 RBIs.
Wood might not be the starter this year, but if he keeps up this play and builds his status as one of the game’s brightest stars, he will perform better in the voting in the future. For now, he can settle for his first appearance as an All-Star reserve in his first full season.
To be fair, Ronald Acuna Jr. is getting the start in front of a hometown Atlanta crowd, so the fans probably got this right based on what the people will want to see.
And if Acuna was healthy all season, he very well could have outplayed Wood. There are just too many great outfielders for spots in the NL this season.
Finally, we close things out by showing love to one of the most underappreciated players in baseball, Eugenio Suarez.
The D-Backs third baseman is in a contract year and is making the most of it, smashing 26 home runs and driving in 69 runs through his first 84 games. The soon-to-be 34-year-old is showing he still has a lot left in the tank, as he is still one of the top-performing third basemen in the game.
Suarez has not been an All-Star since 2018, as other star third basemen like Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado have soaked up a lot of those appearances. It is Machado who again won the fan vote, and it is a deserving-enough selection, as he leads all NL third basemen in fWAR.
Still, Machado has half as many home runs as Suarez and nearly 20 fewer RBIs. If you set the star power aside, Suarez should be starting above Machado.
Hopefully, all of these issues will be rectified when the All-Star reserves are announced, and none of these players get completely snubbed out of All-Star appearances they rightfully deserve. ,
Written by
Ryan Finkelstein has been Managing Editor of Just Baseball since 2021. He also hosts Locked On Mets, the No. 1 daily podcast on the New York…