Online voting is underway for the 94th MLB All-Star Game at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on July 16, which got us thinking: What is the longest All-Star position drought for each team?
Longtime Mariners fans, for example, are aware of the revolving door the franchise has had in left field. With Luke Raley the regular there in 2024, he’s establishing himself as the team’s 17th different left fielder in 17 seasons. Not surprisingly, none of the previous 16 made the All-Star Game — and we have to go back a long time to find a Mariners left fielder who did make it.
So that’s the premise here. We’ll find the longest positional drought for each team, separating out the outfield spots and considering starting pitchers and relievers as well (though don’t expect many pitchers on our list). Players will be considered at the position they played most in the year they were selected for the All-Star Game, even if they didn’t necessarily play the most games at that position for the team (or played elsewhere in the All-Star Game itself).
Let’s get right into it, going from shortest positional drought to longest.
Los Angeles Dodgers
Longest drought: Left field/relief pitcher
Last All-Star at that position: Matt Kemp/Kenley Jansen, 2018
It’s probably not a big surprise that the Dodgers show up first on our list, as they’ve had All-Stars all over the diamond in recent years. Their list of All-Stars, however, is slightly misleading because they move players around. For instance, Chris Taylor shows up as their last center fielder in 2021, but he was really a utility guy that season who started just 48 games in center; it just happened to be the position he played most often. If you don’t want to include Taylor, you go back to Joc Pederson in 2015 as the last center fielder (Cody Bellinger was primarily a right fielder in 2019 and a first baseman in 2017). Max Muncy qualifies as a second baseman in 2019, although he started just 62 games there. Prior to Muncy, the Dodgers would go back to Dee Strange-Gordon in 2014 for second base.
Toronto Blue Jays
Longest drought: Third base/left field
Last All-Star at that position: Josh Donaldson/Michael Saunders, 2016
Whit Merrifield was an All-Star last season, splitting time between second base (67 starts, 595⅓ innings) and left field (66 starts, 594 innings). He also played 37 innings in right field, but he counts as a second baseman for this exercise. Either way, for the longest drought we go back to 2016, for Donaldson and Saunders. Saunders is certainly one of the more obscure All-Stars in Blue Jays history. He hit .298 with 16 home runs in the first half that year but batted .178 in the second half and would last just one more season in the majors. Donaldson’s MVP season was in 2015, but 2016 capped a great four-year stretch in which he trailed only Mike Trout in bWAR.
