5 MLB All-Star Game Records That Will Never Be Broken... and 1 That Might

The All-Streak break allows us to relax and refresh while enjoying the biggest stars of the game battling it out. It also allows us to travel down memory lane, revisit some fantastic feats and see how they could tie into today's betting markets.

So, in addition to looking at MLB odds and making our MLB picks and predictions, we can also look at five MLB All-Star Game records that will likely never be broken and one that might.

Let's take a ride.

MLB All-Star Game records that won't be broken

Most times caught stealing in a game by a single player (2)

Okay. So there's a lot at play here, and this is a record no player would like to own. 

Given the rule changes, you'd think that any stolen base record would be almost a shoo-in for my "record that can be broken" spot. And maybe it is. The record for most stolen bases in an All-Star game period is four, which is perhaps destined to be broken.

But not so fast.

There hasn't been a stolen base since 2019, and while those types of records are virtually meaningless given the new era, it does speak to something. It speaks to players limiting the risk of injury on one of baseball's most injury-prone plays.

Tony Oliva was a right fielder who played the entirety of his 14-year MLB career with the Minnesota Twins. He holds the dubious distinction of being the only player in baseball history to be caught stealing multiple times in the All-Star Game.

It took 15 innings of baseball for that to happen in 1967. So many factors had to contribute to this feat that it feels impossible now. Players are faster now, less of a premium is put on a catcher's defensive ability when being an All-Star selection, and the game now means nothing since the World Series home field change in 2017 — and no one really cares about which league is superior.

Who knows what the future holds for stealing bases in All-Star Games? It could certainly take an uptick, but the risk of injury will still supersede everything. With that in mind, it seems highly unlikely the same player will even attempt to steal multiple bases, let alone get caught doing so.

I have not seen them posted but I eagerly await two-way markets for stolen bases. If we get them, I'll attack some more injury-prone players to not steal a base.

Most runs scored (21)

The most runs scored in an All-Star Game happened in Coors Field in 1998, the height of the steroid era. Given the black eye that time gave the league, right or wrong, you'd have to imagine a league full of performance-enhancing drug abuse is something that can't be replicated. There's too much testing and too many policies in place for it to go under the radar. 

Also playing a part now is that pitching is too good across the board. The steroid era lasted, by most accounts, from 1998 to 2004. In that time, every all-star game but one ended with a double-digit combined total. Since 2004, we've also seen that feat occur twice.

Short of a game being played in Mexico City, it seems highly unlikely we'll see a total exceeding 21 runs. We've had enough trouble reaching double-digits with only the 2018 edition that went 10 innings doing so when the AL won 8-6. Also, only seven total runs were scored when the Midsummer Classic returned to Mile High Denver in 2021.

The total for this year's All-Star game is set at 7.5 on DraftKings. We've gone Under that number in the three consecutive iterations, a sign of just how unbeatable this record will be.

Most triples in a game (2)

This may be the most ironclad of them all.

Legendary 2B Rod Carew completed this feat and became the only player with multiple triples in an MLB All-Star Game in 1978. I'm not sure this could be tied, let alone passed.

Initially, when I was exploring this, I thought this could be attainable. Look around the game and you'll see some of the most fantastic sprint speed runners to ever play, such as rookies Elly De La Cruz and Corbin Carroll. Both will likely be multiple-time All-Stars and will hit a lot of triples in their careers.

But then I remembered one big problem — players generally aren't getting three at-bats in a single game in these events anymore. Over the past five seasons, the average number of players that get three at-bats is 1.2. No player has accumulated more than that. With that in mind, it would be safe to assume that to accomplish this feat, a player would have to triple each time they got an at-bat and hope they got a third crack. No player has ever gone 3-for-3 with three triples in the history of baseball. That's not going to happen in the All-Star Game.

Speaking of Carroll, you can bet on him to hit just one triple tonight at the attractive price of +2,700 on FanDuel. He has some of the longest odds on the board to do this, which is surprising given that he has a sprint speed in the 99th percentile of the league. It may be worth a sprinkle.

Most inside-the-park home runs (1)

I lied. The above is not the most ironclad one — this is. Sure, you can see it being tied, but it's impossible to see a player doing this multiple times in a game. Did you know it's only happened once in All-Star history to begin with? The feat was accomplished by the hit king himself — Ichiro. He did it in 2007 for the American League after a hard-hit ball took a bizarre bounce off a banner covering a brick wall in San Francisco.

We have some fantastic speedsters in today's game, and it will likely be prioritized even more as the game changes with the new rules. However, this won't be happening twice in a single All-Star Game.

We haven't seen a single player hit two inside-the-park home runs in the same game since 1986 when SS Greg Gagne did it for the Twins against the Chicago White Sox. Before that, Dick Allen did it in 1972 as a member of the White Sox.

There's no Statcast data for those games, but you have to wonder what his sprint speed looks like compared to some of today's stars.

Most games Pitched (10)

This is a simple one for me. Roger Clemens finished his MLB career pitching in 10 All-Star Games. Finding a complete list for this is challenging, but no active player is very close right now. To put things in perspective, Max Scherzer leads the active player list among appearances with eight, isn't one this year, and seems unlikely to have enough time left to pass Clemens.

There's also a feeling that there may be more of a push to decline pitching in these games as we go forward. I hope it never happens en masse, but you can certainly imagine how it does in an age where pitchers are throwing harder than ever, their bodies are wearing faster than ever, and the game, for all intents and purposes, means nothing. This record is approachable for me, but given the style of today's pitchers, it is not breakable.

One record that can be broken

Most consecutive strikeouts (5)

So, what we're asking here is if a pitcher can get six consecutive strikeouts in an All-Star Game. Pitchers aren't getting more than two innings these days, which is good to be both a detriment and a positive to accomplishing this feat. The detriment is obvious. You need to be perfect. The positive? Although it may be a bit shortsighted in what is essentially a meaningless game, if a pitcher wanted to "empty the tank" knowing they had just two innings, they'd undoubtedly be able to.

This should get accomplished sooner than later. Five in a row has been achieved twice, once by Carl Hubbell and once by Fernando Valenzuela. Looking around the Top 50 list of most strikeouts per game, you see plenty of players active today. Even more promising, at least in terms of trying to accomplish this, is you're seeing tons of youth.

The likes of Atlanta Braves' Spencer Strider, Los Angeles Angels' Shohei Ohtani, and Cincinnati Reds' Hunter Greene all throw gas and are capable of sitting batters down in short order. To put it bluntly, the league has plenty of flamethrowing strikeout phenoms right now and with so much of it, this seems reasonably attainable.

Although he's no spring chicken, Gerrit Cole is on the mound tonight for the AL and in the Top 50 of the all-time strikeout per-game list. Although I can't bet something like this in advance, I want to utilize his strikeout prowess with plate appearance betting. Braves 1B Matt Olson is +210 at FanDuel to go down on strikes in his first plate appearance, and with a whiff rate that sits near the bottom of baseball, he'll undoubtedly get a bet from me to do so.

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