MLB All-Star Game 2026: It's a weird year for the American League All-Stars
Major League Baseball has a balance problem.
No, not the $338 million payroll gap between the Dodgers and the Marlins. The conversation about the financial haves and have-nots should be held on another, much colder day. If that's your cup of tea, the impending work stoppage this winter will provide ample time for such discussions.
The more relevant (though admittedly less important) example of unevenness impacting MLB is the glaring disparity in quality between the American League and the National League. On the diamond, the NL has absolutely clobbered the AL this season, notching a .554 interleague winning percentage as of Wednesday. The NL has nine teams over .500; the AL has six. The NL has five teams with a run differential better than plus-40; the AL has one.
Next week, that discrepancy will be on full display as the leagues square off in Philadelphia for the 96th annual All-Star Game. The National League roster is chock-full of stars, both established and ascendent. Multiple worthy characters — JJ Wetherholt, Brice Turang, Michael Harris II, Zack Wheeler — couldn't crack the roster. The American League, meanwhile, is scrambling to fill a void caused by injuries, underperformance and an interleague exodus.
That's not to say the junior circuit is devoid of talent. Junior Caminero is billboard material. Bobby Witt Jr., even in the midst of a down year at the plate, might be the third-most valuable player in baseball. Nick Kurtz is an imposing slugger with star-scraping power. Yordan Álvarez is reestablishing himself as the most feared at-bat in the game. Mike Trout has turned back the clock to deliver a wonderful renaissance.
Yet the dearth of upper-crust stardom on the AL side is impossible to ignore.
Injuries, unfortunately, have played the single largest role in diminishing the American League's shine. That begins with three-time AL MVP Aaron Judge, the game's second-biggest draw behind Shohei Ohtani. The Yankees' captain has been out since late May due to a rib injury, but he still finished third in All-Star voting among American League outfielders. This is the first time since 2019 that Judge won't be at the Midsummer Classic. The towering 34-year-old, as the Yankees well know, is difficult to replace.
But Judge isn't the only absence. Guardians third baseman José Ramírez, a presence at seven of the past eight All-Star Games, is recovering from mid-June hand surgery. Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, the reigning Home Run Derby champ, missed a month due to an oblique strain that muted his offensive production. Red Sox youngster Roman Anthony, an ascending star expected to carry Boston's lineup, hasn't played since May 4 due to a finger issue. Twins cornerstone Byron Buxton, who finished second behind Judge in AL outfield voting, won't be attending after a hip issue landed him on the IL this week.
There's also a chance that Trout, on the IL since June 18, doesn't come back in time to appear in his hometown All-Star Game. Having Judge, Buxton and potentially Trout sidelined would require the American League to replace its entire starting outfield. Reserves Randy Arozarena, Cody Bellinger and Riley Greene would slide into the starting lineup, leaving three open spots for AL outfielders, a position group that was already weaker than typical. It could result in some ... underwhelming All-Stars.
The American League pitching community is suffering from a similar problem. Tarik Skubal, the back-to-back AL Cy Young winner, missed six weeks while recovering from an elbow procedure. A series of injuries have kept Garrett Crochet, the 2025 AL Cy Young runner-up, shelved since late April. Other top Junior Circuit arms such as Max Fried, Hunter Brown and Carlos Rodón have also been out for long stretches.
But it's not just injuries hurting the AL. We've seen down years from guys such as Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Gunnar Henderson and Steven Kwan, age related-decline from the likes of Jose Altuve and Jacob deGrom and, crucially, a bevy of big names switching leagues. The past few seasons have seen an AL exodus of sorts, with Ohtani, Juan Soto, Kyle Tucker, Rafael Devers, Bo Bichette, Alex Bregman all moving to the NL via free agency or trade.
Here's another way to slice it: Just two of the top-10 AL MVP finishers from 2025 — Witt and Caminero — will be in Philly next week. Things are even bleaker on the pitching front. None of the top six from last year's Cy Young voting — Skubal, Crochet, Brown, Fried, Bryan Woo, Rodón — are All-Stars.
Compare that to the National League side, where the entire top four from last year's Cy Young voting — Paul Skenes, Christopher Sánchez, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Logan Webb — are attending. So are six of the top nine from last season's NL MVP race.
Will this result in a blowout victory for the National League in the All-Star Game? Almost certainly not. Baseball is too random for that. Besides, the AL roster isn't a Bad News Bears situation. These are still elite players. It's also not the first time that injury woes pushed unforeseen characters into the Midsummer Classic limelight. Austin Hays hit seventh and started in center field at the 2023 edition, after all.
Still, this is as unbalanced as the All-Star rosters have been in recent memory. That, in concert with the NL's on-field dominance in 2026, raises questions about whether this disparity is a blip or a trend. Payroll, of course, might have something to do with it; six of the top nine teams by payroll play in the National League.
But the real answer, as is often the case, is likely less interesting. This is probably an aberration, a product of random occurrences, history that won't repeat itself. We'll need a lot more data, a lot more time, to determine whether this is systemic or simply an outlier.
