7:00 AM ET
Today, we sit exactly six months out from the 2023 All-Star Game in Seattle so instead of continuing to wait — and wait — on the final free agent news, it is a perfect time to look ahead to the upcoming season by picking our way-too-early All-Stars.
We’ll pick the 32-man rosters with 20 position players and 12 pitchers (eight starters, four relievers) — and, yes, each team needs a representative. Which might be an issue.
One interesting thing happened in the majors in 2022 that we should keep in mind, with baseball a sport where we so often hear about the next generation of young stars: The best position players got older. They are the oldest, in fact, since 2014. I looked at the top 30 position players each season using Baseball-Reference WAR and the average age in 2022 was 27.8 — with 10 of the 30 players in their 30s, also the most since 2014:
2014: 27.9 (11)
2015: 27.4 (6)
2016: 27.6 (8)
2017: 27.1 (7)
2018: 26.8 (4)
2019: 26.1 (3)
2021: 27.4 (7)
2022: 27.8 (10)
The top three players — Aaron Judge, Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt — were also all in their 30s, the first time that’s happened since 2001 with Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Jason Giambi.
