Starter \u2013 Brendan Donovan<\/strong>
Brendan Donovan, the starting second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals, is finally getting the recognition he deserves. He first broke onto the scene in 2022, batting .283 with 110 hits. From the start, he\u2019s been a contact machine\u2014and he\u2019s shown that throughout his career.<\/p>\nIn 2024, his numbers rank among the league\u2019s best. He\u2019s batting .310 with a .379 OBP and a 2.3 WAR in 64 games. Right now, the 25-year-old is on pace to shatter all of his career highs. He\u2019s also tracking toward his first-ever All-Star Game appearance.<\/p>\n
Donovan will continue being a valuable piece for the Cardinals, not just for his pure hitting, but also because he can play multiple positions. He deserves the starting recognition for the National League and could be the first Cardinal since Paul Goldschmidt in 2022 to earn that nod.<\/p>\n
Backup \u2013 Ketel Marte<\/strong>
If Ketel Marte didn\u2019t miss time this year, he\u2019d likely be in the conversation to start for the National League. Marte\u2019s breakout gained full attention in 2024 when he finished third in MVP voting. He batted .292 with 36 home runs and posted a 6.8 WAR.<\/p>\nHe picked up right where he left off, batting .346 through the first 10 games before his injury. Since returning, Marte\u2019s been just as productive. He continues to provide Arizona with one of the most valuable bats in the National League.<\/p>\n
Dark Horse \u2013 Jeff McNeil<\/strong>
Just weeks ago, Mets fans were all over Twitter trying to trade Jeff McNeil. What\u2019s happened since then? He\u2019s flipped the script.<\/p>\nOver the last two weeks, McNeil has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball. Alongside Juan Soto and Pete Alonso, he\u2019s helped carry the Mets\u2019 offense. During this stretch, the former batting champ is hitting .317 with a 1.016 OPS, five home runs, and 11 RBIs.<\/p>\n
Thanks to that surge, McNeil now owns one of the top OPS marks among NL second basemen. That\u2019s enough to spark a legit All-Star conversation.<\/p>\n
American League<\/strong><\/h3>\nStarter \u2013 Gleyber Torres<\/strong>
A month ago, Gleyber Torres might have had real competition from Red Sox rookie Kristan Campbell. Now? This race looks like a one-person show.<\/p>\nThe Tigers\u2019 offseason acquisition has been a pleasant surprise through the first half of the 2025 season. Torres signed a one-year, $15 million deal to bring experience and offense to Detroit, and he\u2019s done exactly that.<\/p>\n
Torres leads nearly every major category among AL second basemen. He\u2019s hitting .267 with five home runs and 30 RBIs. Other names like Brandon Lowe and Jackson Holliday have stepped up lately, but Torres has delivered consistently all year.<\/p>\n
Main Photo Credits: \u00a9 Jeff Curry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The best time in all of sports has officially arrived: the summer of baseball. What does that mean exactly? Every other league takes a backseat while Major League Baseball drives through the warm months as the only professional sport with competitive games. And with that comes one of the game\u2019s most beloved traditions: the MLB […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5548,"featured_media":102166,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071],"tags":[1057,2257,702],"class_list":["post-102139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","tag-gleyber-torres","tag-jeff-mcneil","tag-ketel-marte"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102139"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":102167,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102139\/revisions\/102167"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}