The veteran utility man has had a breakout 2025 and deserves recognition for it.
All-Star pitchers and reserves were announced on Sunday evening and only one Detroit Tiger was added to the roster, Tarik Skubal. With 26 total roster spots and a mandate for every team to have at least one representative, it was fairly predictable for Skubal to be the only Tiger added. Skubal is the fourth Tiger named to the roster, after all, tied with the Seattle Mariners for second most in baseball, behind only the LA Dodgers . Considering their lack of name-brand star power, it’s understandable. But that doesn’t mean it’s right.
Perhaps no player represents the Detroit Tigers more than, or better than, Zack McKinstry. Detroit’s a baseball city that’s always favored the underdog, that gritty, hard-nosed utility player who kept his head down and played the game the right way. In the last decade or two alone, all of Donnie Kelly, Ramon Santiago, Andrew Romine, and Harold Castro earned cult followings for putting the bat on the ball and playing where their manager needed them, no questions asked. It didn’t really matter if they were good or not – though if you asked any fan, they’d let you know Kelly was the glue of those 2010s juggernauts or Romine was the only watchable player down the stretch in 2017. They were just scrappy, and we loved them for it. The team needed them and Detroit fans appreciated them, even if the rest of the sport didn’t know who they were.
Coming into 2025, McKinstry seemed destined to join that group of players. For 2 years as a Tiger, he had done everything asked of him, besides hit. He walked a bit more than average, struck out a little less than average, stole a handful of bases, pinch hit, played every position except catcher and first base, most of them well. He was the quintessential glue guy on a team squeezing every ounce of value out of their 40-man roster. For example, take his role on the team last year. When Javy Baez got hurt, he took over as the starting shortstop; when they brought in Trey Sweeney, he went back playing whenever and wherever AJ Hinch called his name.
In 2025, McKinstry has leveled up. He’s still playing every position imaginable – he finally added first base in the extra-innings tilt against Cleveland! – but now he’s hitting. Really hitting. His batting average and slugging percentage are way up from his career marks, he’s walking more than usual, making better, flusher contact and spraying line drives all over the field. He looks like a different hitter, and the results reflect it.
McKinstry’s OPS is a remarkable .819, 43rd among all of baseball’s qualified hitters. He’s accumulated 2.8 of his 5.6 career WAR in 2025. That 2.8 WAR is 11th highest in the American League, by the way. Oh and just for a little extra sweetener, he’s one of the best baserunners in the game and has 11 steals.
This is more than a career year, it’s an All-Star caliber season. And outside of Detroit, nobody seems to care.
McKinstry placed third in the MLB Fan Ballot at third base, behind the ever-excellent Jose Ramirez, and Alex Bregman, who hasn’t played since May 23rd. Correct, a player who did not take the field in June earned more votes than McKinstry and his .891 OPS for the month. To top it off, the Players’ Vote doubled down and chose Bregman to join the roster, even though he hasn’t returned to game action yet. The same happened with Jeremy Pena, a shortstop – McKinstry’s other primary position – currently on the shelf with a broken rib. Seriously?
The silver lining to all this is that, since at least two of the reserves currently selected won’t play, and others will probably drop out too, there’s more space on the roster to fit deserving players like McKinstry. If he is chosen as an injury replacement, and he should be, it won’t entirely make up for the fact he deserved to have his name called with the rest of the reserves, but it would go a long ways. This year he’s playing like an All-Star for the best team in baseball. And somehow, as things currently stand, McKinstry is poised to spend the All-Star break in a familiar spot: overlooked.
Hopefully, the group in charge of injury replacements recognizes this and gives McKinstry the chance to show the rest of the sport what Detroit fans already know.