AL All-Star voting update is basically a map of the 2026 Mariners' failings

Don't worry. The Seattle Mariners are going to be represented in Philadelphia for the All-Star Game in July. They must have at least one All-Star player by rule, and the smart money is on Randy Arozarena and Logan Gilbert making it at least two.

Ask about starters, though, and the only appropriate answer is "Starters?!" in an incredulous tone worthy of Jim Mora.

The first update for the American League All-Star voting didn't bode well for the Mariners, and the new one is barely better. Only Arozarena and Julio Rodríguez are getting enough recognition to move onto Phase 2 of the voting, yet neither would be a starter if the voting patterns hold.

There are Mariners who deserve better. Ernie Clement may have a whole country behind him, but Cole Young leads AL second baseman in WAR. And while Dominic Canzone is no Yordan Alvarez — alas, it's true — his 158 OPS+ and 12 homers are numbers deserving of All-Star recognition.

Still, this is the extent to which anyone pulling for the Mariners can get up in arms over the All-Star voting. Unlike the one New York Yankees fans have with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. over Ben Rice, there's nothing resembling a hill worth dying on. The whole thing is more so just… depressing.

How the All-Star voting captures why the Mariners are barely better than a .500 team

For Mariners fans, to look at the All-Star ballot is to see what could have been if things had gone the way they were supposed to go.

After starring as the Home Run Derby winner and the AL's starting catcher at last year's All-Star break, Cal Raleigh was supposed to live up to his historic 60-homer outburst. After signing a $92.5 million contract and coming over in a trade, respectively, Josh Naylor and Brendan Donovan had All-Star creds to live up to as well. Heck, maybe 2026 would be the year that Julio finally did the thing and had a first half worthy of the Midsummer Classic.

Instead, Raleigh and Naylor each have exactly -0.4 rWAR. Donovan is still on the injured list. Julio had a terrific May, but on either side of that is a .678 OPS in April and a .591 OPS in June. It's no wonder not one of them ranks higher than fifth in the voting at their respective positions.

It would be convenient if there was a single scapegoat for all this, but to seek just one is like throwing punches in a room full of ghosts.

Maybe Dan Wilson isn't the motivator he's made out to be, but he's not the reason injuries have limited Raleigh and Donovan to fewer combined games (72) than the whole team has played (79). Bad roster management is a factor there, for sure. But that's not why Naylor only seems to hit ground balls to second base, or why Julio is still doing the hot-and-cold thing five years into his MLB career.

The theme of the Mariners' 2026 season isn't all bad luck any more than it is all incompetence. It's a little Column A and a little Column B. The result so far is a team that just doesn't really inspire acclaim, which makes the All-Star voting less of an injustice and more of a mirror.

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