TOM VERDUCCI 

Tom Verducci delivers a mix of expert commentary, inside angles and thoughtful perspectives on baseball’s biggest storylines every week.

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⚾ The Leadoff

John McCoy/Getty Images

A Young Man’s Midsummer Classic

The people have spoken, and they made it clear they like champions. One-third of the 18 elected All-Star Game starters played in the World Series last season. None are bad choices. After all, it’s the ultimate game for fans.

Going strictly on merit, however, to pick my deserving All-Star starters, I disagree on half of the elected starters.

My picks reflect the game of baseball today. It’s a young man’s game. Of my 18 All-Star selections, only six are older than 29, including a Midsummer Classic Rock reunion of Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, who last played in the same All-Star Game eight years ago.

Of the 12 drafted players among my picks, seven were first-round picks and none were found after the fifth round. Six were signed as international free agents from four countries: Cuba, Japan, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Here are my All-Star starters, including where noted when I opted for a different choice than the fans’ pick.

American League

C: Dillon Dingler, Tigers, over Shea Langeliers, Athletics

Dingler has the better numbers across the board by narrow margins, but the defense is the biggest separator between the two. Dingler ranks in the 97th and 98th percentiles in blocking and framing.

1B: Nick Kurtz, Athletics, over Vlad Guerrero Jr., Blue Jays

This is not close, especially because Guerrero has had trouble getting the ball in the air with any authority.

2B: Ernie Clement, Blue Jays

No problem here. Clement leads AL second basemen in OPS and leads the league with 22 doubles. 

SS: Bobby Witt Jr., Royals

He leads the league in WAR and stolen bases, plays hard every day and can change a game in more ways than most players.

3B: Junior Caminero, Rays

Look out, baseball world. He has cut his chase rate for a third straight season. With his sick bat speed, Caminero is one of the best fastball hitters in the game. He slugs .788 against four-seamers.

OF: Byron Buxton, Twins

He goes to back-to-back All-Star games for the first time. He is the AL leader among outfielders in OPS, just ahead of …

OF: Mike Trout, Angels

Welcome back, Mike. He hasn’t played in an All-Star Game since 2019 but should be on the field in Philadelphia next week with his imminent return to the Angels’ lineup this week. He joins Cal Ripken Jr. and George Brett as the only AL players elected as a starter at least 11 times.

OF: Riley Greene, Tigers, over Aaron Judge, Yankees

You could pick Greene or Cody Bellinger to replace the injured Judge. Bellinger is the better defender, but Greene has more total bases and the better OPS+.

DH: Yordan Alvarez, Astros

Easy call. The best hitter in baseball, Alvarez leads in the AL in hits, OBP, slug, OPS and total bases.

Casey Paul/Getty Images

National League

C: Hunter Goodman, Rockies, over Drake Baldwin, Braves

Thirteen homers and a .680 slug in June pushed Goodman ahead of Baldwin in a tight race. And most of Goodman’s damage has come on the road, where he has hit 18 homers, and not in Colorado, where he has nine.

1B: Bryce Harper, Phillies, over Freddie Freeman, Dodgers

Harper leads all NL first basemen in OPS and is second in homers, runs and walks. Freeman and Matt Olson of the Braves are right there with him.

2B: Luis Arraez, Giants, over Ozzie Albies, Braves

Think of this position as a multiple-choice question with no bad answers. JJ Wetherholt of the Cardinals leads in WAR, Brandon Lowe of the Pirates leads in homers and RBIs, Ketel Marte of the Diamondbacks leads in total bases and Brice Turang of the Brewers leads in runs. But there is no denying a guy hitting .326 with the most hits and highest OPS+ at the position.

SS: Otto Lopez, Marlins, over CJ Abrams, Nationals

Lopez retooled his approach over the winterto get more into his legs. It’s paying off with a huge season. He leads the league regardless of position in hits, singles and batting average and leads Abrams comfortably in WAR, 4.1 to 2.9.

3B: Max Muncy, Dodgers

At 35, Muncy is having the best season by a player that old at that position since Adrian Beltre 10 years ago.

OF: Juan Soto, Mets

It’s already the fifth All-Star game for Soto, who continues to be an on-base machine with more walks than strikeouts (for the eighth season) thanks to a career-low strikeout rate.

OF: James Wood, Nationals, over Brandon Marsh, Phillies

Wood leads the league in runs, walks and total bases while leading all NL outfielders in home runs.

OF: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cubs, over Andy Pages, Dodgers

It’s close, but Crow-Armstrong leads the NL in WAR with better numbers than Pages in most categories. Soto, Wood and Crow-Armstrong rank 1-2-3 among NL outfielders in OPS.

DH: Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers

He keeps amazing us. Ohtani has thrown 50 pitches at least 100 mph—already a career high, and third most among MLB starters—and hit 76 pitches at least 100 mph—27th most in MLB.

Harry How/Getty Images

A Unicorn Turns 32

Ohtani turned 32 years old Sunday at a time when his incredible full-time two-way duty caught up with him a bit. On Friday, Ohtani grinded through six innings with 110 pitches—matching a career high for pitches in a game with nine baserunners. The next inning he left the game feeling tightness in his right biceps, the result of taking a swing in his previous at-bat. The next day he did not play while receiving treatment.

With the All-Star Game coming up, the Dodgers might opt to skip his next start, due Friday against Arizona, to afford him what would be a two-week break from pitching. It would reduce his projected innings total from 152 to 143. His career high is 166 but remember that Los Angeles plans to play seven months. It counts on him having enough in the tank to throw another 20–30 innings in the postseason. 

On the day Ohtani turned 32, he had played in 1,099 games as a hitter and made 114 starts as a pitcher. His birthday is a good time to appreciate the gift of Ohtani as a two-way player of unprecedented productivity.

Compared to all hitters through 1,099 games, Ohtani:

• Hit 298 home runs, fifth most, behind only Aaron Judge, Ralph Kiner, Juan Gonzalez and Ryan Howard.
• Stole the most stolen bases (171) among players with 250 home runs except for Willie Mays (188).
• Most resembles Frank Robinson:

Through 1,099 GamesHRRBITotal BasesOPSRobinson2507492,305.957Ohtani2987192,334.955

As the home runs and the Robinson comp suggest, as a hitter alone Ohtani is an all-time great.

Now consider what he has done on the mound. Compared to all pitchers through 114 games, Ohtani:

• Struck out more batters (765) than all but nine pitchers.
• Owns the 11th lowest ERA (2.81).
• Lost the fewest games (22) of all pitchers with 700 strikeouts.
• Most resembles Roger Clemens:

Through 114 GamesW–LERABBSOClemens66–232.97232787Ohtani47–222.83208765

Combine all-time greats Robinson and Clemens into one player and you have Ohtani. Amazing.

Pinch Me

Brace Hemmelgarn/Getty Images

Miguel Rojas, who tied World Series Game 7last year with a ninth-inning home run, quietly added another career highlight Friday: he pinch hit for Ohtani. Rojas singled in the seventh inning when Ohtani was removed with biceps tightness.

The moment recalls the incredible career of Carroll Hardy, the Forrest Gump of understudies. As a minor leaguer in 1955, Hardy also played for the San Francisco 49ers, catching passes from Y.A. Tittle.

In 1958 with Cleveland, on his 25th birthday, Hardy hit his first MLB homer while pinch-hitting for Roger Maris.

Two years later, on Sept. 20, 1960, Hardy became the only man to pinch hit for Ted Williams, who had to leave the game after fouling a ball off his foot in his first inning at-bat. (Hardy popped up a bunt into a double play).

Eight days later, in Williams’s final game, Hardy replaced Williams in left field when he was removed so that Fenway Park fans could send him off with an ovation. It was the game made famous by John Updike’s famous essay, “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu.”

Wait, there’s more.

The next year, 1961, Hardy pinch hit for Carl Yastrzemski. He bunted again. This time for a hit.

No, not done.

The year after that, 1962, Hardy, batting in the 12th inning, became the only player to end a scoreless game with a grand slam.

Wait. There’s more. On the final out of the pennant-clinching win for the 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox, Hardy was on deck for Minnesota when Rich Rollins popped up to Rico Petrocelli.

After his playing days, Hardy worked as an executive in the Denver Broncos front office, mentoring John Elway.

Tittle, Maris, Teddy Ballgame, Yaz, Elway. That’s a lot of history for a career .225 hitter, including .190 as a pinch hitter.

The Skenes Slump

Hunter Martin/Getty Images

One of the odd stats from the first half is that the Pirates have lost nine consecutive starts by Paul Skenes. He has a 5.36 ERA in that stretch.

Much has been made of his decline in velocity. He averaged 96.3 mph in his last start, tying a career low in his 73 starts, having dipped to the same number on May 12, which happened to be his last win.

Yes, his velocity has been trending down, as you can see here:

But velocity is not his problem. Skenes is allowing a .188 average on his four-seamer, the best of his career. He’s throwing it about as often as ever and is dotting it on the top rail more than ever.

The bigger problem is Skenes’s off-speed pitches. In 2024 and 2025, Skenes’s off-speed pitches ranked in the 100th and 98th percentiles in run value. This season they are down to the 17th. 

Skenes throws seven pitches. His changeup marks only the second time one of them ranks as below average in run value. (The other was the slider in 2024, which he threw only six percent of the time.) Worse, he has lost confidence in his splitter, which was a featured put-away pitch for him as a rookie. As you can see here, it has less movement, is not missing enough bats and is getting waffled:Skenes Splitter by YearUsageTotal MovementOpponents’ BAWhiff Rate202428.3%15.0.18429.3%202513.5%14.5.28922.8%202611.0%13.9.36618.8%

If you look at the annual heat maps of Skenes’s splitter, you understand why his confidence in the pitch has diminished. In 2024 and 2025, he consistently dotted the lower glove side corner of the strike zone. The pitch snaked under the barrel of right-handed hitters who were reading it as a sinker.

But look at how the splitter this year has drifted toward the center of the plate. His average horizontal miss this year is 2–3 inches, which is a lot. But his biggest misses, the ones that get hit, are about eight inches, or almost half the width of the plate. Those are the ones that find barrels.

Skenes’s struggles remind us of two truths about the righthander:

He still throws plenty hard enough to get people out.

He always has been more of a craftsman than a pure power pitcher.

Skenes is a seven-pitch pitch-maker who relies on movement, sequencing and precision more than blowing away hitters. When he loses his touch on deadening the baseball with his changeups and splits, he loses a big lever in how he can dominate hitters.

📺 Breakdown of the Week

 

Buyer beware. Freddy Peralta of the Mets is one of the few starting pitchers on the trade market who has the pedigree to start Game 1 or 2 of a postseason series. But the righthander they call “Fastball Freddy” is not the same pitcher, especially when you dig down to find what’s underneath his 4.81 ERA.

Peralta simply is not exploding down the mound nearly the same as he did in his prime. Over the past five years, including a dramatic change since last year, Peralta has devolved from having elite extension—the magic behind his lively fastball—to average extension and below-average perceived velocity.

You can see for yourself the decline of Peralta above. He is throwing with career lows in extension, arm angle and perceived velocity. Here is one snapshot of his mechanical decline:YearExtensionArm Angle20217.237.3°20256.838.4°20266.5*32.1°*

*Career low

Losing 8 ½ inches of extension means Peralta is giving hitters more time to read and react to his pitches. Perceived velocity, a function of how far the ball travels and its speed, means much more to a hitter than basic velocity.

Since 2023, Peralta’s fastball has lost 0.3 mph on the radar gun. But because Peralta has lost extension, it has lost 1.3 mph in perceived velocity, that is, to the hitter’s eye. With a perceived velocity of 94.2, the fastball of Fastball Freddy is now a below average major league fastball.

Looking at the decline in extension and perceived velocity here, you understand that any team that trades for Peralta, a free agent after the season, must be confident it can quickly fix his mechanics to get the life back on his pitches.YearVelocityExtensionPerceived VelocityBA202394.46.995.5.213202494.36.894.9.239202594.86.795.4.209202694.16.594.2.2572026 MLB Average94.76.595.0.246

📺 TV on TV This Week

Monday, July 6: Diamondbacks @ Padres, 9:30 p.m. ET (FS1)

Saturday, July 11: Red Sox @ Mets, 4 p.m. ET(FS1)

The Padres picked a bad time to go ice cold. A 20-game gauntlet leading to the All-Star break (Braves, Dodgers, Cubs, Diamondbacks, Blue Jays) began with a sweep of Atlanta but has cratered into a season-on-the-brink collapse. Entering Sunday, the Padres were outscored 73–27 in a ghastly eight-game losing streak. How bad was it? Only one team, the 2000 Mariners, gave up so many runs in an eight-game losing streak and made the playoffs. Seattle was seventh in the majors that year in runs per game. These Padres are dead last. The pitching that carried such a weak offense for three months has buckled. 

Best of SI Baseball

• Tom Verducci: Exclusive: Kyle Schwarber to Participate in Home Run Derby, On Two Conditions
• SI Staff: Ranking America’s Best Athletes From All 50 States
• Tim Capurso: Best Starting Pitcher Alternatives to Tarik Skubal at the Trade Deadline
• Karl Rasmussen: The 10 Biggest Snubs From the 2026 MLB All-Star Game
• Nick Selbe: Six Decisions That Sunk Perry Minasian—and What’s Next for the Angels

 

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