The Yankees may be leaking oil as the club approached the All-Star break but the club will be well-represented at the Midsummer Classic with a trio of position players and the presumptive favorite for the AL Cy Young Award playing for the Junior Circuit this summer.
The fans voted injured slugger Aaron Judge into the contest, as he was one of the top three among outfielders in Phase 2 of the voting. As an aside, I can’t even imagine what his last five seasons would look like statistically if not for
Dodger Stadium and a fractured rib. Ah well. He isn’t the first all-timer to have fans saying “what if” (heck, he’s joined in the voted-in outfield by another, Mike Trout, and to a lesser extent Byron Buxton). Meanwhile, Cam Schlittler headlines the group of Yankees selected by the players and league, along with Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger.
Aaron Judge – 59 G, 17 HR, 38 RBI, 43 R, .248/.375/.533, 150 wRC+, 2.1 fWAR
Aaron Judge has been healthy for three of the past five seasons. Aaron Judge has been the AL MVP for three of the past five seasons. Put simply, he is one of the greatest hitters baseball fans have ever seen. It tracks that fans are sending him to the ASG, though there is zero chance he will play in the contest.
Even when he was healthy, this has been a down year for Judge — neaning he was merely one of the best, most terrifying hitters in all of baseball instead of a superhuman force of nature. After hitting .331 and winning his first career batting title in ’25, Judge’s average did not reach north of .250 until April 27th. Coming off three 50-home run seasons in the past four, he hit one long ball in his last 18 games before hitting the IL. And still. The Captain is 50 percent better than league average at the dish in ’26 and is eminently deserving of another All-Star nod. Despite missing all that time, he remains one of the best AL outfielders by fWAR (even though it’s a counting stat).
Cam Schlittler – 18 GS, 104 IP, 8-5, 2.08 ERA, 123 K, 3.2 fWAR
If you told me 12 months ago that Schlittler, an unheralded prospect and seventh-round draft pick, would have this kind of first calendar year in the majors, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed. But I am not going to complain. It’s hard to describe how amazing it has been to watch Cam develop into a stone-cold ace, especially after the heartbreak over the year of the Killer B’s, and Joba, IPK, and Phil Franchise, Deivi García, and even an award-winner like Luis Gil. TINSTAAPP is a cruel law of nature.
An awful recent start “inflated” Schlittler’s ERA, obscuring to some extent how dominant he’s been. Opponents are hitting .206/.251/.336 against him this season. That .587 OPS is pretty darn close to Zack Greinke’s career OPS (.598). Cam has rendered the best hitters in the world helpless at the plate. If you prefer visual evidence over the written word, watch his June 19th start against Cincinnati.
Ben Rice – 82 G, 24 HR, 56 RBI, 58 R, .270/.362/.569, 155 wRC+, 2.4 fWAR
Speaking of unheralded, you’d be forgiven for never imagining this career arc for Ben Rice, considering that he was a 12th-round pick out of an Ivy League school and due to the pandemic, he hadn’t actually played college ball in 16 months prior to being drafted in July 2021. But here we are with the lefty slugger manning first base and, for a great deal of the first half, carrying the offense on his back. Impressive as the back of his baseball card looks this year, as recently as June 21st, his slash line was a Judgian .293/.388/.616.
Rice has been everything the Yankees could have hoped for, especially with Judge and Giancarlo Stanton out, Trent Grisham missing a chunk of time, and inconsistent, sometimes awful, stretches at the plate from other Yankee hitters. Dominant against right-handed pitching (1.026 OPS), Rice has even held his own against southpaws, with a .755 OPS when facing lefties.
Cody Bellinger – 85 G, 11 HR, 49 RBI, 46 R, .252/.351/.429, 120 wRC+, 2.6 fWAR
It is important in life to admit when you are wrong. I wanted nothing to do with a Cody Bellinger reunion in the offseason. I was on the King Tuck hype train. I was wrong. Belli has been fantastic. Baseball-Reference, which likes his defense more than FanGraphs, has him at a lofty 3.6 rWAR already, a number that would be higher if not for a prolonged cold spell at the dish (at the end of the day on June 17th, that OPS was .860 instead of .780).
Meanwhile, he’s been elite patrolling the outfield. In the 91st percentile with 5 Outs Above Average, Bellinger also boasts one of the strongest outfield arms in the game, with an arm strength in the 94th percentile.
If Bellinger ever figures out how to hit away from Yankee Stadium this season, watch out.
It’s possible we could see more Yankees join the aforementioned due to injuries and/or players withdrawing from the All-Star Game. In an ideal world, I’d love to see Paul Goldschmidt get another All-Star nod, considering what Goldy is doing for the Yanks at the age of 38, with the lineup ravaged by injury around him. But it might be a long shot.
Congrats to the four Yankees All-Stars, and we’ll look forward to watching some of them in Philadelphia on July 14th.
