Milwaukee Brewers: Analyzing the Potential All Star Picks

Orlando Arcia & Brandon Woodruff

It’s not unheard of for a player to get scorching hot to end the first half of the season and parlay that into an All Star selection. Heck, that’s half the reason the Final Vote was invented! The Milwaukee Brewers have a couple of players who are sitting slightly above average in their respective position groups who could do just that.

If Davies’ emergence as staff ace this year was surprising to Brewers fans, Orlando Arcia finally showing some offensive promise has been just as delightful to see. Arcia has come up big in a number of clutch situations and making sure opposing pitchers know that the bottom of Milwaukee’s order is not to be an afterthought.

The 24-year old is on pace to set career highs in every offensive category except for batting average, which would still be his second best for a year, and stolen bases. Even that might be enough to find a way into the All Star Game though.

There are a number of NL shortstops with good-looking numbers this year. Arcia’s best ranks among them are in walks (4th), home runs (5th) and RBI (7th). A strong finish to the first half could potentially push him further up the ranks, but it would take a level of offense we’ve never seen from him before.

After a rough start to the season, Brandon Woodruff turned things around in a big way to establish himself as arguably the second best pitcher in Milwaukee’s rotation. His ERA was threatening to go sub-3.00 prior to his two most previous starts while continuing to rack up strikeouts at an impressive pace.

Woodruff’s 90 strikeouts are the 6th most in the NL currently, as is his 10.9 K/9 and 29.5% K%. Had he continued on the same trajectory, we might be considering two Brewer starters in the All Star game. However, Woodruff has given up nine earned runs over his last two starts to slow down some of his momentum and would need to turn things around immediately for the coaches who vote on pitchers to consider giving him his own All Star spot.

Much like last year, the Milwaukee Brewers will almost certainly end up with multiple All Star participants in 2019. Yelich is all but guaranteed to be one of them. Moustakas, Grandal, and Hader are the most likely candidates to join him. Depending on what happens down the stretch, those four might not be the only All Stars that Brewer fans get to watch this year.