Does Willi Castro have a legitimate chance to start the All-Star Game at second base?
Willi Castro is having another great season and is looking to be selected to his second straight All-Star Game. Out of all the candidates to start at second base this season, Willi is the only one with an OPS that’s above .800; Castro currently has an .848 OPS. He also has the best batting average of all the other candidates, hitting .290. Just looking at offensive numbers, Castro seems like the obvious choice at second base for the AL, and that definitely could be enough to get him voted in.
Unfortunately, there are some arguments as to why he’s not the obvious choice. One would be that he had a pretty lengthy IL stint from mid-April to early May. He was on the injured list for 20 days with an oblique strain, so Castro has only played in 51 games, which is significantly less than other candidates like Marcus Semien, who has played in 71 games, and Jose Altuve’s 68 games played. The biggest reason I think Castro isn’t a lock to get the start at second is due to his defense. He’s currently in just the third percentile in Outs Above Average at -6. Most of this is due to his struggles at third base, where he’s at -4. At second base, where he's had the most fielding attempts, Castro’s OAA is still negative but not nearly as bad at just -1.
Castro’s biggest competition at second base will be Jazz Chisholm, Jackson Holliday, Gleyber Torres, Marcus Semien, Brandon Lowe, and Daniel Schneeman. Out of those six guys, Castro has a worse bWAR than five of them. Chisholm and Torres are both tied for the highest at 1.6, significantly better than Willi, who currently has a 1.0 bWAR. But who’s to say how much fan voters actually value overall performance compared to pure offensive production? We’ll be able to see where Willi ranks in votes for the starting second base spot on June 26th when the top two vote-getters at each position are revealed. Then, on July 2nd, the voting will close for the starting spots for each position.