WE HAVE YEARS TO WATCH JACOB MISIOROWSKI — THE ALL-STAR GAME IS MUCH TOO EARLY
More accomplished pitchers deserve spots ahead of the Milwaukee phenom, who has only five career major-league starts, and commissioner Rob Manfred is toppling a major concern about kids and arm health
Be honest, please. Do you know how to pronounce his name? Or spell it? Before Jacob Misiorowski qualifies for the All-Star team, he might want to pitch more frequently than a glorified batting-practice hurler. How about ingratiating himself to the American masses?
He has made five career starts for the Milwaukee Brewers. Tuesday night, he will be available for the National League in Atlanta. He has the smallest sample size in the history of baseball. I don’t care what Misiorowski has accomplished in a couple of weeks. Handing him a golden spot before accomplished pitchers is a cheapie, like giving Kendrick Lamar a Grammy for his first lyric — “Psst I see dead people” — in “Not Like Us.”
Maybe he’s an all-timer. Eighty-nine times in 25 2/3 innings, he has thrown heaters at more than 100 mph. He owns the second-highest velocity — next to Tarik Skubal, the best in the game — in the 2025 season. He is 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA. He struck out eight, allowed two hits and beat Paul Skenes, thought to be the best on-the-mound phenom ever in the major leagues. Sorry. Misiorowski is not more worthy than, say, two Philadelphia starters, whose exclusion angered the Phillies’ clubhouse and launched rant sessions longer than his name, which comes in at miz-uh-RAO-skee.
“What a joke. That’s f—— terrible,” Trea Turner said. “I mean, that’s terrible, dude. It’s not the All-Star Game in the sense that the best players go there, or people who have had the best season. It’s whoever sells the most tickets or who has been put on social media the most.”
“It’s turning into the Savannah Bananas,” said teammate Nick Castellanos, who has noticed the barnstorming team selling out major-league stadiums.
In approving the Misiorowski selection, commissioner Rob Manfred has thud-toppled a reigning health concern that young pitchers are wrecking arms with too much speed. He wants a 23-year-old to enter the game and blow out American League hitters. Why? What about the potential damage? Eight years ago, Major League Baseball stopped using the All-Star result to determine home-field advantage in the World Series. It’s only an exhibition, meaning pitchers who must work for real teams on the final weekend before the break — Misiorowski replaced Matthew Boyd, who pitched Saturday for the Cubs — should be considered full-fledged All-Stars even if they don’t play. Next on the National League list should have been the most obvious picks, whatever — not the lad known as “The Miz,” sharing it with the WWE wrestler.
Try Christopher Sanchez, who has pitched 107 2/3 innings with 116 strikeouts and a 2.59 ERA. He should make the team, though he’s pitching Sunday for the Phillies. What if he has an All-Star contractual bonus and must explain to his family that Misiorowski is going? What is the point of compiling a better ERA in many more innings than the kid?
“If he’s not an All-Star, then no one is,” Turner said.
“He should be named an All-Star, still,” Kyle Schwarber said.
How about his teammate, Ranger Suarez, who has a 1.94 ERA in 83 2/3 innings? Forget him. MLB wants Joe Davis and John Smoltz to rave about The Miz and make sure fans are lining up for tickets. Even Pat Murphy, manager of the Brewers, wasn’t sure about fairness when he heard the news about his right-hander.
“At first, I thought, ‘This is not going to be fair.’ This kid, it's not the same way when the other guys have to go out and pitch — whoever it may be,” Murphy said. “But this is the entertainment business, this is what MLB wants, this is what people want to see. The way he accepted it and the way he handled it, just shows you how humble he is.”
Said Misiorowski, in tears: “I’m speechless. It's awesome. It's very unexpected and it's an honor."
“I understand why some people feel the way they feel, just because it's a small sample,” Milwaukee’s Christian Yelich said. “But at the end of the day, this is the entertainment business. People want to be entertained. It's a showcase of some of the best and most exciting players in the game; that's what an All-Star game is. I think Miz is definitely that. He's going to get an opportunity to showcase himself. He's just as talented as a lot of guys there. He just didn't do it as long as some of them.”
Said the Brewers’ Trevor Megill who will join Misiorowski in Georgia: “I think we already know what the perception looks like. It’s Rob’s call at the end of the day, isn’t it? That’s kind of what it seems like.”
Rip Manfred, of course. The sport never should be this desperate. With replacements, The Miz is the 80th All-Star named on both teams — 80. Why not pick hundreds of players, for the hell of it? I can’t wait to see him take a perfect-game bid beyond the seventh inning. I can’t wait to see him face the Dodgers, who struck out 12 times in their first swings. But his journey to the Midsummer Classic is much too soon.
“He shouldn't care,” Yelich said. “It's not his fault. It's not in his hands. He should take it as an honor and enjoy the experience, because you never know how many you're going to get to do. It might be the only time you get to do it. Who cares what everybody else thinks? I understand the frustration of people, but it's not the kid's fault. He got chosen. He should go. There's many deserving players every year that don't get to go, and unfortunately, that's just how it works. If people don’t like it, f— ‘em.”
“This wasn't a fly-by-night decision,” Murphy said. “This is something they thought through. And I think it would be really tough for the kid to say no to that.”
He said yes. In the meantime, I will try to vocalize his name.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.