3 players who could be the Rays' 2025 All-Stars

While the Rays' season hasn't gone exactly as anyone would've hoped, they're still only a few games under .500 and are receiving reinforcements soon.

There's hope for this team, and while this past week was rough with getting swept by the Royals in embarrassing fashion, they also, no matter how poorly the season goes, have to have an All-Star representative.

And what better time than early May to use super small samples to predict which of the Rays will make the American League roster!

So, without further ado, here are the 3 players currently playing well enough to potentially make a run at making the AL All-Star team.

Shane Baz

If you want any advice on how to conduct your life, don't go looking at Shane Baz' season numbers until he makes his next start.

The last outing was bad, by far the worst he's had this season and probably the worst he'll have, because my goodness it can't get much worse (I'm really tempting fate here).

So it jumped his ERA into the 3s, his fWAR dropped to 0.6, and he nearly equaled his earned run total for the entire months of March and April in a single outing.

It's tough, and while that 1st month was a very small sample, his stuff looks absolutely electric.

Baz had a 3.06 FIP and was striking out 31.6% of batters over almost 30 innings.

Hopefully the month of May is not as dreary as his first start would suggest, and he's able to reclaim the performances of April and ride that to an All-Star election.

Jonathan Aranda

Another player whose performance hasn't been great recently, Aranda got off to such a scorching start it was unrealistic to expect him to continue to hit at the pace he was on.

But, his .308/.402/.538 slash line is still very impressive, and he's even managed not to be the dud that people might've expected with his glove at first, culminating in a 1.0 fWAR through his first month of full-time action in the majors.

Aranda has been hitting the crap out of the ball, with a 99th percentile hard-hit rate and a 95.1 MPH average exit velocity.

That's some impressive stuff, and speaks to a player who's not simply getting lucky with a high BABIP; Aranda's production is not only real, it seems possibly sustainable.

So, Aranda is probably the leading position player for the Rays to make the All-Star game if things shake out that way, and while Paul Goldschmidt probably earns the starting job due to the Yankees of it all and his excellent start, Aranda will be a fun backup for first base.

Drew Rassmussen

Ah, good ole' Ras, he's been absolutely dealing this season, proving why the Rays made a smart move in giving him a contract extension this offseason.

If things go poorly enough for the Rays, Ras could very well be a valuable trade target for teams at the deadline, with his elite stuff, production, and versatility as a starter or reliever combined with an incredibly friendly contract.

But let's not go down that rabbit hole; Ras is pitching himself to a 2.64 ERA over 30+ innings, sporting a very good 5-pitch mix that are all above-average offerings in Stuff+.

He could stand to regress a bit as the season goes on due to his somewhat suboptimal strikeout rate and high BABIP, but for now it's fun to imagine Rass coming in for an inning and firing in his wonderful stuff on the way to an All-Star game MVP.

One can dream, and that'd be a tremendous story for a guy whose had so many arm troubles; hopefully he can stay healthy and continue to pitch as well as he has, regardless of whether he ends up playing in Atlanta come July.