Baffling Jacob Misiorowski All-Star nod robs Cardinals pitcher of deserved honor

Nobody should blame Phil Maton if he's feeling slighted right now. At age 32, the St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher has been enjoying the best season of his career. He holds an ERA of 1.83 in 34.1 innings and has fanned 31.2% of opposing batters. But if he hoped to be recognized for his efforts, he may have just received a rude awakening about the current laughable state of Major League Baseball's All-Star Game.

The fan vote has been a staple of the All-Star Game since 1970, and as a result, the game has always had its most popular players named to the Midsummer Classic. There are countless examples of lesser-known position players being passed over in favor of more well-known players who didn't match up on the stat sheet to the more anonymous candidates.

However, pitchers have always been a bit more reliable when it comes to getting into the All-Star Game based on merit rather than popularity because the pitchers are chosen by players, coaches and managers around the league, who are generally more tuned in to other teams' players than most casual fans are. But even the pitching side may be growing more into a popularity contest, as Maton was just spurned in favor of a truly befuddling choice.

Jacob Misiorowski has somehow been named to the All-Star Game over Maton.

Misiorowski's selection to the All-Star Game over Maton is the final nail in the coffin of the All-Star Game's respectability. It's true, the rookie starting pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers has been excellent to begin his career, owning a 2.81 ERA and 33 strikeouts in 25.2 innings, but it makes a mockery of the game when someone who has made all of five major league starts is named to the game in lieu of players like Maton.

MLB has clearly been attempting to promote its young success stories as of late. Before Misiorowski shattered the record of fewest major league games before an All-Star nod, Paul Skenes set the record in 2024, with 11 games pitched. These two pitchers unquestionably have wipeout stuff, and baseball clearly wants to showcase it before the league's batters figure them out — or before the pitchers succumb to the nearly unavoidable Tommy John surgery.

Maton will not deliver 100mph heat to blow batters away, and the fact that baseball can't find room in the game for a deserving player who elicits strikeouts and weak contact with his guile and ability to set up batters is a somber indication of where the sport is going.

Baseball used to stand out among the four major professional sports with its All-Star Game. For years, it attracted fans with its "this one counts" slogan, as the league that won the game would possess home field advantage in the World Series. But as the seasons passed, it became clear that the casual nature that players and managers approached the game with didn't mesh with such an important result. So in 2017, the All-Star Game became purely an event for fans, with no stakes attached, and it's gone downhill ever since.

Players are now bowing out of the game en masse because they want to rest or see family during the All-Star break, or they simply don't want to risk injury in a meaningless game. But even with all the dropouts, baseball still can't find a spot for the Cardinals' breaking ball maestro.

Maton has hummed along like your reliable Toyota Corolla, but those around the game appear to be smitten by the snazzy, speedy Dodge Viper in Misiorowski. If you watch the All-Star Game this year, spare a thought for Maton, who may never reach this level of success again. In baseball's increasingly desperate attempts to grab eyeballs. Maton simply doesn't pass the flashiness test.