Julio Rodríguez Is the Elephant in the Room at This Year’s All-Star Game

All stats and rankings were taken prior to play on July 9.

With the 2025 All-Star Game right around the corner and the rosters for the Midsummer Classic recently announced, I thought it would be fun to start out this discussion with a game.

In the table below, I highlighted stats from two players in the American League. Take a look at the numbers below. Can you guess which player is the 2025 All-Star and which player was left off the this year’s roster?

This might seem like a nonsensical question, but bear with me.

You might notice that Player B has the advantage in every category highlighted above — by a wide margin, I might add — except for stolen bases, where he trails Player A by five steals. The choice seems obvious, though, right?

To throw a slight wrinkle into the equation, what if I told you that Player A has an fWAR of 2.4 and Player B has an fWAR of 2.0, would that sway your answer?

For some, it certainly might. After all, WAR is one of the most powerful statistics the game of baseball has to offer, and it can be extremely valuable when evaluating players.

But is the 0.4 difference in fWAR between Player A and Player B enough to overcome the significant gap in the offensive production between these two players? It’s a fascinating question, but I’d argue that it’s not.

Player A is, of course, Julio Rodríguez of the Seattle Mariners, and Player B is George Springer of the Toronto Blue Jays. Rodríguez received an invite to this year’s All-Star Game, while Springer was left off of the roster.

Every year when the All-Star rosters are announced, there’s plenty of discourse surrounding the selections, just as there should be. Discussing who made it to the All-Star Game and who may have been wrongfully left off the roster is part of the fun of the event.

The All-Star Game is about seeing the best players in MLB compete against one another, and the game is a way for fans to see the best of the best go at it.

But the fact of the matter is this: Julio Rodríguez simply has not been among the best of the best in 2025. In fact, he’s largely been a league-average to below-league-average hitter for the vast majority of the season.

Sure, he’s been one of the best defenders at one of the most important positions in baseball, but how much should that matter when talking about All-Star selections?

When it comes to this discussion, defensive performance shouldn’t be the sole reason a player earns an All-Star bid, especially when the player in question has offensive numbers that fall well below All-Star expectations.

The All-Star Game should be reserved for those who have been the cream of the crop throughout the first half of the MLB season, and Rodríguez’s performance has been a far cry from that.

If Not Julio, Then Who?

Of course, in order for a player to be taken off of an All-Star roster, there have to be viable replacements to take his place. We’ve already highlighted Springer as being one of, if not the biggest snub of this year’s game, but the list of worthy All-Star candidates doesn’t end there.

The table below compares Rodríguez’s stats to several other players who were in consideration for an All-Star selection:

For starters, there’s even an argument to be made that Rodríguez wasn’t even the best outfielder on his own team.

Randy Arozarena is just a point behind him in batting average but has a significantly higher on-base percentage and slugging percentage. His OPS is nearly 100 points higher than Rodríguez’s, his wRC+ is 29 points higher, and he has the same number of stolen bases, three more home runs, and just two fewer RBI.

Despite Rodríguez being the far superior defender, Arozarena has nearly the same fWAR (2.3) as Rodríguez (2.4).

As was mentioned, the biggest argument in favor of Rodríguez making the All-Star Game is his WAR accumulation thanks to his defensive value. Still, Rodríguez ranks just eighth in fWAR among qualified AL outfielders.

That’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, but that’s not impressive enough to outweigh his offensive shortcomings.

What’s more, Ceddanne Rafaela, who has better offensive numbers than Rodríguez across the board except for stolen bases and RBI, even has higher Defensive Runs Saved (+13) and Outs Above Average marks (+14) than Rodríguez.

So, if defensive performance was the reason J-Rod earned a ticket to Atlanta, then one could argue Rafaela was equally as deserving, if not more.

Even expanding beyond just All-Star candidates, Rodríguez’s offensive numbers pale in comparison to all other AL outfielders.

Here is where J-Rod ranks among qualified AL outfielders to this point in the season: T-18th in batting average, 21st in on-base percentage, 23rd in slugging percentage, 23rd in OPS, 23rd in wOBA, T-21st in wRC+, 17th in homers, and 12th in RBI.

The only category where he has really excelled is stolen bases, where he is tied with Arozarena for the third most among AL outfielders.

For as good as his defense has been, those numbers are not All-Star worthy. It’s even more evident when stacking Rodríguez’s numbers up against the other outfielders who made this year’s Midsummer Classic.

All-Star Worthy Production?

There were a total of 13 outfielders selected to the 2025 All-Star Game. Here is how Rodríguez’s numbers stack up against both the AL and NL outfield representatives:

Among the names in the table above, Rodríguez ranks dead last in the following categories: batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and wRC+. He’s also 10th in homers and ninth in RBI, and that includes Acuña, who has played just 40 games this season.

Not only is his OPS below .700, but his OPS of .695 is 65 points lower than the next closest player (Baez and Kwan at .760). His wRC+ is the lowest among all 13 All-Star outfielders by 12 points as well.

When compared to MLB averages this season, Rodríguez is just slightly above the league average in batting average and wRC+, but he is below average in on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS, and wOBA.

What’s more, it’s not as if Rodríguez is Seattle’s lone representative in this year’s game, either. Since all teams must be represented, occasionally a player can sneak into the Midsummer Classic who wouldn’t normally have been selected.

However, the Mariners have three other representatives outside of Julio: catcher Cal Raleigh, starter Bryan Woo, and closer Andrés Muñoz.

Additionally, it’d be a different story of J-Rod was selected to the All-Star game via the fan vote due to his star appeal and likability amongst MLB’s fanbase, but he was selected as a reserve, meaning that he earned the nod as a result of the player ballot.

Rodríguez’s name recognition and talent must hold tons of value in the eyes of the rest of the league because it’s hard to rationalize his All-Star selection based on his performance at the plate this year.

Final Thoughts

The point of this article is not to spotlight Rodríguez as a bad player, because he’s not. He’s been a very solid player and is on pace for a five-win season, but he’s largely been a below-average hitter at the plate, making it difficult to argue that he’s worthy of this All-Star selection.

In fact, his performance these last two seasons have been a far cry from where his numbers were when he first broke into the league. Perhaps what he was able to accomplish across his first two MLB seasons is carrying more weight than it should be, especially considering what he’s done more recently at the plate

In a piece a few weeks back, I did a deep dive into Rodríguez’s recent production — specifically these past two seasons — and compared it to what he was doing in his rookie and sophomore seasons.

The results are glaring in more ways than one, and what we’ve seen from him since the beginning of the 2024 season is starting to look like the new normal. After already taking a step back in 2024, his performance at the plate has continued to decline this season.

In the end, it will go onto Rodríguez’s resume as his third All-Star bid in just four MLB seasons. But this time around it’s fair to wonder if he was truly deserving of the honor.