Naming the Out in Left MLB Bald-Star Team is a tradition that started last year.
“Mookie Betts giving hope to all 30-something balds,” I texted my buddies in October, after watching the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate their World Series victory.
“Need a bald stars full lineup from Out in Left,” Miles replied.
‘Need’ is a perfect word for it because bald is beautiful, and given the state of the world we need as much beauty as we can get. It’s also an opportunity to highlight players that aren’t typically mentioned in year-end reviews of the MLB season.
If you feel I missed a deserving Bald, or catch a new Bald next year, then please let me know. Most photographs and videos of players and managers are with their caps on. And unless noted, players with buzz cuts are excluded. The Out in Left Bald-Star Team is about accepting people as they are.
Without further ado, I offer the second annual Out in Left MLB Bald-Star Team.
Manager
Mark Kotsay, [redacted] Athletics
First Bald-Star Team selection
The enduring “highlight” of the Athletics tenure in Sacramento will be manager Mark Kotsay walking out of the ballpark through the outfield fence after being ejected from a game against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Sutter Health Park is a minor league ballpark, so there are no clubhouses underneath the dugouts. The facilities are in makeshift buildings beyond the confines. We in the stands recognized the farce as it was happening and most everyone laughed at it. The exception was the A’s fan sitting next to my buddy. He muttered to himself about how dumb it was to speculatively buy 20 season tickets.
That’s a shame because the A’s yet again have an exciting core of young players, and Kotsay guided the team to a near-.500 record. The greatest of the A’s bunch is Nick Kurtz, who, at 22-years-old and standing at 6’5”, looks like the kid in high school who cracks jokes and doesn’t stretch before games, then drops 25 points in the first quarter.
Thanks to owner John Fisher, everything about the A’s as an organization is a disaster. Kotsay’s baldness reflects that. I just hope the manager gets a chance to win with this core before his best players are inevitably traded in a cost-saving fire sale.
Starting Pitcher
Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox
First Bald-Star Team selection
If MLB awarded a WWE-style belt to that season’s Best Bald Player in Baseball, then it would be Garrett Crochet’s this year. Across 31 starts, the Boston Red Sox ace has pitched to a 2.68 earned run average and leads the majors in strikeouts. The Sox had traded several highly-regard prospects for Crochet. I can’t remember any one of them, but I know who the Best Bald Player in Baseball is. The Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal will probably win his second consecutive AL Cy Young Award, but does he get a bejeweled belt for that?
Relief Pitcher
Aroldis Chapman, Boston Red Sox
First Bald-Star Team selection
Aroldis Chapman is somehow one of the best relievers ever and a journeyman. He’s also a relatively recent Bald, which might explain his having a career year for the Sox, his seventh team, at age-37. The stats are absurd, but the most ridiculous is that he went from July 23 to September 10 without allowing a hit. With Crochet pitching and Chapman closing, the Red Sox can win any Game 1 in the playoffs.
Catcher
Mitch Garver, Seattle Mariners
First Bald-Star Team selection
Considering the reputation for catchers—grizzled, no-nonsense, no-offense veterans—there are surprisingly few Balds. Last year’s, Bald-Star Team selection was Jacob Stallings, who played 42 ineffective games this season. This year, the award goes to the Seattle Mariners’ Mitch Garver. I would cite his stats, but that would be rude. His notable achievement is backing up Cal Raleigh and allowing him to stay fresh so the Big Dumper could chase the AL home run record.
First Baseman
Paul Goldschmidt, New York Yankees
First Bald-Star Team selection
In the closest race among the 2025 Bald-Stars, Paul Goldschmidt narrowly beats out the Houston Astros’ Christian Walker, last year’s pick at first base. Goldschmidt, a future Hall of Famer, is clinging to his playing days as much as he is to his hair—an OPS+ over 100 and a 1.4 bWAR is nothing to sneeze at in an age-38 season. Now, if he can only teach teammate Anthony Volpe how to play baseball.
Second Baseman
Brandon Lowe, Tampa Bay Rays
Second Bald-Star Team selection
Here’s what I wrote about Brandon Lowe last year when he received his first Bald-Star selection:
Brandon Lowe hit 100 home runs faster than any primary second baseman in MLB history. He hit 39 home runs in 2021. He’s hit 42 over the last two years, despite playing only 216 games. It makes sense why the Rays wasted little time this offseason to exercise his $10.5 million option for 2025. For that kind of power, that salary is a pittance. It’s also a shame that that power is wasting away in obscurity in Tampa. Sorry—St. Petersburg. Or, wherever the Rays are going to play this season.
Lowe has hit the 30-home run mark again this season, and the Rays remain irrelevant. Nailed it.
Third Baseman
Edmundo Sosa, Philadelphia Phillies
First Bald-Star Team selection
There’s nothing that stays in a fan’s memories like a longtime utility player. Tomás Pérez and your career -0.2 bWAR: I will always love you. For a younger generation of Phillies fans, their heart will belong to Edmundo Sosa, who, despite only filling in for injured regulars, has accumulated 2.3 bWAR this season. On cue, he hit three home runs in a game this week. It’s usually only diehard fans who remember these non-legends, but Sosa cemented his place in baseball history by providing this all-time blooper a few years ago:
Shortstop
Mookie Betts, Los Angeles Dodgers
Second Bald-Star Team selection
Not only is it ridiculous that Mookie Betts converted full-time to shortstop at 32-years-old, but he was also more valuable at the position than the likes of Trevor Story, Xander Bogaerts, and J.P. Crawford. Betts will one day be inducted into the augural class of the Bald of Fame.
Outfield
Amed Rosario, New York Yankees
First Bald-Star Team selection
Amed Rosario was once the number-one prospect in baseball, and he was the centerpiece in the trade that sent Francisco Lindor to the New York Mets. In the last four seasons, though, he’s been on six different teams. He landed with the Yankees at the trade deadline, and he’s been good! He’s recorded .323 batting average and a 130 OPS+, albeit in just 31 plate appearances, but still! He’s also played almost every defensive position, which has been a godsend for a team carrying two underwhelming former prospects in Jasson Dominguez and Anthony Volpe and the carcass of Giancarlo Stanton.
Adolis Garcia, Texas Rangers
Second Bald-Star Team selection
Since the start of 2021, Adolis Garcia has has averaged 28 home runs and 91 runs batted in per season, and he singlehandedly carried the Rangers to the 2023 World Series title. It appears Garcia’s decline has started, though, in this, his age-32 season. With just 18 home runs and a 91 OPS+, he’s having the worst season of his meteoric career. Still, Garcia’s half-decade run will go down in Bald-Star Team history.
Brandon Nimmo, New York Mets
Second Bald-Star Team selection
This is the fourth straight year of Brandon Nimmo playing over 150 games and hitting double-digit home run totals. It’s the ninth straight year of being an above-average hitter, per OPS+. I’m taking liberties adding him in the Bald-Star Team, since he sports a mullet-like thing on his head. But Nimmo’s hairline is receding faster his speed—he plays exclusively in left anymore, and for the first time since his rookie season he has zero triples. For this, he earns his second selection, which is some solace to being party to a second-half collapse for the ages.
Designated Hitter
Yordan Alvarez, Houston Astros
First Bald-Star Team selection
Yordan Alvarez has not been healthy this year, playing in just 48 games. And yet, he still has an OPS just under .800 and is a 20% better batter than league average. When he is on the field, Jordan Alvarez is one of the most intimidating and productive hitters in baseball. Just ask Jose Alvarado.
