The Struggle Bus: Former MLB All-Stars Who Are Fading In 2024

June 5, 2024

Jon gives you a rundown of the former MLB All-Stars who are playing like anything but that in 2024. Which players could improve and which may be nearing the end of their career?

Per the great Stathead, 236 currently active players have been All-Stars at least once in their careers. The "one for every team" rule, along with positional needs and random half-season breakouts, have created some fun All-Stars on that list, including luminaries like Joe Mantiply, Andrew Kittredge, Yan Gomes, Santiago Espinal, and James McCann.

With so many former All-Stars floating around the league, it's natural that some wouldn't be performing well in 2024. Some should be performing better considering their age and pedigrees, whereas others are on an expected decline due to age and/or injury.

Let's take a look at the All-Stars who sure aren't playing like it this year.

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Shouldn't These Guys Still Be Good?

I'm not going to spend time discussing Espinal, with all due respect to him, since his All-Star selection came out of nowhere, and there's not really an expectation that he ought to have followed up on it. But these three players were All-Stars last year and have had muted encores, to say the least:

Corbin Carroll

No former All-Star has had a more shocking fall from grace than Carroll, whose wRC+ has more than halved from 133 to 65. After 65 extra-base hits last year, Carroll only has 12 in the first third or so of the season, including just two homers to follow up 2023's 25. Looking at his batted-ball profile, it's not too hard to see what's going on: he's popping up way more balls, barreling fewer, and pulling the ball less; in conjunction with hitting fewer fly balls, he's just not getting to his power much.

I'm not completely out on Carroll by any means -- slumps happen, and he's 23 -- but outside of a few isolated games here and there, he's looked pretty darn lost, and the swing adjustments he's made clearly aren't working. He hasn't even gotten on base enough to utilize his elite speed, with just nine steals in 13 tries, a poor follow-up to stealing 54 in 59 tries.

Bo Bichette

Bichette has always been a streaky hitter, but a .629 OPS and 81 wRC+ are anemic, no matter how you slice it. His aggression has reached new heights this year, swinging at 59% of pitches seen, a new career high. Along with that, he's actually making contact with more swings than ever. But that's perhaps been the cause of his troubles, leading to weaker contact.

Name a Statcast stat, and Bichette's probably at his nadir for it. The most troubling is that the righty isn't hitting as many balls to left field as he has in years past, and he's barreling fewer pitches. In putting just 28% of balls in play on the sweet spot of the bat (a 10-point dip from 2023), he's playing right into pitchers' hands by swinging at their pitches. Until he makes an adjustment there and actually lays off, I don't really see a turnaround coming very quickly.

Kevin Gausman

The former Blue Jays ace isn't young (he's in his age-33 season), so maybe we should've seen a decline coming sooner, but things just haven't gone right through 12 starts for Gausman. His 4.60 ERA is up over a full run from last year, and his strikeout rate is down nearly 10 points.

His two main offerings have both backslid tremendously, as you can see in the splits:

The splitter is getting fine bottom-line results as far as batting average is concerned, but the expected stats are considerably worse thanks to far fewer whiffs. And the four-seamer has gone from good to abysmal; hitters are simply hammering it because Gausman isn't spotting it well, and the velocity is down 0.8 mph. To rediscover his form, Gausman needs to rediscover his fastball.

Please Just Get Healthy!

Through no fault of their own, these players are yet to appear this season, a real disservice to baseball fans who'd love to see these current or former stars play. A quick rundown of those guys and when they can be expected back:

Gerrit Cole

Elbow inflammation has kept the reigning Cy Young Award winner on the shelf for the entire season, and even as the Yankees have been elite without him, they'd, of course, love to get him back. The big righty is on the road to recovery, making his first rehab start on Tuesday with the Somerset Patriots; he should be back to the majors by the end of the month.

Max Scherzer

It looked as if Scherzer was ahead of schedule in his recovery from back surgery, but nerve pain caused a setback that could keep him out until next month. The good news, though, is that Scherzer is finally progressing well. It's a disappointment that the future Hall of Famer wasn't ready in May as we'd hoped he would be after recovering so well from the offseason surgery, but he'll be back sooner than later to provide a big boost to a rotation ravaged by injuries.

Robbie Ray

Ray's dual Tommy John/flexor tendon surgery has kept him out of action since his first start in 2023, and he won't be back until around the same time as Scherzer. He's ready to appear in a game this week but will surely take the full 30 days of rehab that he's allowed to get back into a routine and stretch out. The Giants rotation could've been a strength, but outside of Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison, it has been a weakness, with Blake Snell pitching terribly and on the IL for the second time. Ray should be joined by fellow former All-Star Alex Cobb to lengthen the rotation.

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