Which San Diego Padres Should Be At The 2026 All-Star Game?

This weekend, Major League Baseball will reveal their rosters for the 2026 All-Star Game. Even through their uneven play through the first three months of the season, the San Diego Padres stand to have a couple of possible representatives for the Midsummer Classic in Philadelphia later this month. However, the nature of such variance in play is that the candidates look quite a bit different. 

In the case of the Padres, we can immediately rule out a couple of their notable names. 

Manny Machado will not be attending an eighth All-Star Game here in 2026. Despite an uptick in his power and defensive contributions this year — and a better overall performance over the last few weeks — he's still in the midst of one of the worst offensive seasons of his career, sitting at an 89 wRC+ and a batting average (.192) that is still tied for the worst among qualifying position players. 

There was some hope at the outset of the season that a healthy Jackson Merrill could reestablish himself as one of the game's young stars and reach his second All-Star game in three seasons. That hasn't come to fruition in any sense; Merrill has been unable to work himself out of a spiral in his approach and has generated very little of merit on his stat sheet. 

You'd be hard-pressed to find possible representation elsewhere in the remainder of the Padres' group of position players, either. That side of the ball has been comprised of replacement-level play from just about everyone not named Ty France (1.4 fWAR, 131 wRC+), but there's a long line of National League first basemen that would lay claim to a trip to Philadelphia before he would. 

If there's a case to be made, it could (somewhat surprisingly) come in the form of Fernando Tatis Jr. Despite the extended power outage that consumed most of his first half, he's been quite good just about everywhere else on the field, including his characteristically strong defense at both second base and in right field. The power has manifested with more regularity over the last month, too, with a .191 ISO in June. He's 16th in fWAR (1.5), ultimately, among National League outfielders. It's a case, but there's some stiff competition ahead of him that will likely hold him out.

Given that, it's unlikely we'll see any Padres position player dress for the All-Star Game. Barring a number of drop-outs, there just isn't a case to be made up against their National League counterparts.

The same is true of the team's rotation. If anything, the justification becomes easier. 

A team that ranks 24th in fWAR among their starting pitchers isn't likely to have a candidate to begin with. Even the rotation's linchpin in Michael King just endured a June where his ERA sat near 4.50 with a FIP over five. If he's not offering the type of performance to garner such recognition, one could hardly expect the remaining collection of Randy Vásquez, Walker Buehler, et al to do so. As it is, our candidates are not to be found here, either. 

It's possible that the real world was always going to be such where the team's most likely All-Star representatives emerged from the relief corps. The Padres' bullpen is one of the league's strongest individual phases for any team. It's there that we'll find the most assured lock the team has to offer, with their runner-up waiting in the wings. 

Mason Miller has been the game's best relief pitcher in 2026. He's accrued 2.2 fWAR with a 0.78 ERA, 0.42 FIP, and obscene 50.0 percent strikeout rate. He possesses what is, possibly, baseball's best individual pitch in the form of his slider. If the team could only have one representative, he'd be the one without question. 

One wouldn't have too difficult a time making a case for Adrian Morejon to join him, either. Morejon's 1.7 fWAR ranks second among NL relievers, with a FIP (2.05) that ranks second and a strikeout rate (29.5 percent) that ranks 13th. Among the top 30 relievers in innings pitched, his performance has been far-and-away of the highest quality in the National League. 

There are no surprises here. Given how Miller came out of the gate and how steady Morejon has been as his comrade in the late innings, a pair of relievers serving as the team's All-Star representatives was always going to be the most likely outcome. Sure, it's disappointing that they're the only two for which an easy case can be made, but there's at least a certain solace that exists in not getting the sympathy invite as part of the required representation for each team. That pair has earned it in the most objective sense.