Brandon Lowe was left off the NL All-Star team even though he leads all major league second basemen in home runs and RBIs. The Pirates second baseman also sits third among major league second basemen in runs, WAR and OPS, a line that would normally carry him onto the roster.
Joe Starkey wrote that the league, the fans and the players should be mortified by the Lowe snub. He also wrote that Brandon Lowe leads all major league second basemen in home runs and RBIs, and that if All-Star bids were based only on merit, Lowe would have been the Pirates’ representative.
Brandon Lowe vs. the NL team
The selection process did not work on merit alone. Fan voting decided starters, player voting handled reserves and some pitchers, and the commissioner’s office helped fill other spots, which left room for factors beyond raw production to shape the NL team.
That is where the contradiction sits. Lowe’s numbers at second base outpace the field in the two counting stats most people notice first, yet he was still bypassed while Ozzie Albies was voted in by fans as the starting second baseman and Luis Arraez was voted in by players while batting.330. Brice Turang was also snubbed at second base.
Paul Skenes and Pirates context
The Pirates entered Sunday’s game at Washington at 45-45, 10.5 games out of first place and four behind the last wild-card team. Earlier in the season, they had reached.500 a league-leading 15 times, and that record sits in the background of a roster that drew only one All-Star representative.
Paul Skenes said he was surprised to be the Pirates’ lone representative for the All-Star Game, pending late adds. Bryan Reynolds, Braxton Ashcraft, Nick Gonzales and Spencer Horwitz were all having better seasons than Skenes relative to their positional peers, and Reynolds and Lowe were described as absolutely deserving of All-Star selection.
What the Lowe snub leaves
The immediate result is simple: the Pirates have one All-Star name attached to them, and Lowe does not get the roster spot his production points toward. That leaves the selection process exposed, because the best second baseman by home runs and RBIs did not translate those numbers into a place on the NL All-Star team.
Late adds to the All-Star Game were still pending, so the list was not fully closed. For Lowe, the snub already says enough: his season has been strong enough to lead all major league second basemen in the two stats that usually settle these debates, yet the roster still went another direction.
