Shea Langeliers will be first A’s catcher to start All-Star Game since 1989
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- Shea Langeliers will start the All-Star Game, first A’s catcher since Steinbach 1989.
- Langeliers earned the start after leading fan voting in both Phase 1 and Phase 2.
- Langeliers has an .827 OPS and 20 home runs, second-best OPS among AL catchers.
For the second straight year, the Athletics will have an All-Star Game starter after going 10 seasons without one.
Throughout the fan voting process, there was little doubt that A’s star catcher Shea Langeliers would earn the starting nod, leading the entirety of Phase 1 and 2 despite a June slump and strong Toronto Blue Jays voting bloc to clinch his first All-Star selection.
To earn the starting spot, Langeliers beat out Blue Jays backstop Alejandro Kirk in the head-to-head Phase 2 of fan voting, MLB announced Saturday.
Slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, the unanimous American League Rookie of the Year last season, was also revealed Saturday as an All-Star, selected by player vote rather than fan vote. He will be a reserve behind starting AL first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
With his selection as a starter, Langeliers will become the first A’s catcher to start the game since Terry Steinbach in 1989. He previously said it was an honor to even be in the same conversation as an A’s Hall of Famer like Steinbach.
“It’s something you always dream about as a kid to get to play in the All-Star game,” Langeliers, who will make his first All-Star Game appearance, told The Sacramento Bee in June. “It’s kind of full circle, all the work you put in your whole career, leading you to this point. It’s really cool.”
How has Langeliers been doing?
Langeliers, 28, held an .822 on-base plus slugging percentage this season entering Saturday, the second-best among qualified AL catchers, to go along with 20 home runs and 16 doubles. His 20 homers, 87 hits and 51 runs all lead AL catchers.
After a hot start to the season, Langeliers cooled in June where he posted a .204 average and .632 OPS in 25 games with nine extra-base hits.
However, he started off July with his 20th home run, doing against the Los Angeles Dodgers, making him just the eighth Athletic to hit 20 homers in four consecutive seasons since 1968 and the second since 2006 after Khris Davis did so from 2016-2019.
“He’s obviously been the catalyst of our offense. It’s hard to sustain, as a catcher, the performance that he put on in May,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay, who frequently wore “Vote Langeliers” shirts to pregame media availability during All-Star voting, said after Wednesday’s 7-1 win over the the Dodgers. “I feel like he’s done a great job.”
‘We’ve been building each year’
Langeliers earning a starting spot follows then-rookie shortstop Jacob Wilson’s fan-election last season, which broke a 10-year starter drought for the club.
Since 2014, when Josh Donaldson was a fan-elected starter for the A’s at third base, the team has only made the playoffs three times, most recently during the COVID-shortened 2020 season. The A’s haven’t made the American League Championship Series since 2006 and the World Series since 1990.
“Since I got here in ‘22, we’ve been building each year,” Langeliers said. “The culture in the clubhouse and the camaraderie as a team, it’s just building off the year before, getting stronger every year, and it’s starting to show.”
While Langeliers was the only A’s player to advance to Phase 2 of the fan vote, star first baseman Nick Kurtz had been widely expected to join him in the All-Star Game as a reserve selection.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal named A’s starter J.T. Ginn as one of his predicted “notable omissions” on the pitching side in a Thursday article. Ginn, who holds a 7-4 record and 3.04 ERA across 19 appearances (16 starts) this season, is the most likely A’s pitcher to earn a selection.
