Hunt and Peck

The Cardinals All Star Honorable Mentions - A Hunt and Peck

Players that could have made the team, but didn’t.

By lil_scooter93 Jul 14, 2021, 2:00pm EDT

91st MLB All-Star Game presented by Mastercard

I preface this entire post by saying that the All Star Game is pretty much meant to be fan service. I think this All Star Game mostly accomplished that. Some players still probably see it as a reward for top performance, though, so with that in mind there are a few players from the Cardinals that could have been considered, but for whatever reason were not chosen. Ultimately I think the All Star teams were fine. This is just a fun exercise to showcase some other players that have been playing well in a year where there has been not so much to showcase for the Cardinals lately.

Now that the disclaimer is out of the way, to the list!

Tyler O’Neill

Like, obviously. Tyler O’Neill has arguably been the best player on the Cardinals this season. He hasn’t amassed as much value as Nolan Arenado due to missing time for injury, but when he plays, he has been a major part of any Cardinals success. On a rate basis he has been the most valuable player with .009 fWAR/PA. He has also been the most successful hitter on the team so far with the highest wRC+ at 138. Add in his solid fielding and speed on the base paths and he was certainly worth to represent the Cardinals in the Summer Classic. For fun, here he is hitting a 463 foot home run at 112.2 mph:

Giovanny Gallegos

Alex Reyes has had a solid year and has the closer prestige, but Giovanny Gallegos might be the true anchor of the Cardinals bullpen. He ranks twelfth in all of baseball among qualified relivers in fWAR, tied with Adam Ottavino, at 1.1. After Reyes at 1.52 he has the lowest ERA at 2.72 and the lowest FIP on the team by far at 2.80. With a 32% strikeout rate and a 5.9% walk rate is K-BB ratio is tied for fourteenth in baseball at 26%. He definitely belongs in the conversation of the top relivers in the league.