MLB All-Star Futures Standouts: 5 performances worth knowing from the Futures Game and Skills Showcase

Arlington, Texas – First held in 1999, the All-Star Futures Game has long been an annual showcase of the game’s top prospects, who compete in a seven-inning exhibition as one of the first major events of All-Star weekend. Are invited to take. ,

In 2024, for the first time, MLB introduced a new element beyond the exhibition game: a hitting contest involving a selection of eight young hitters who demonstrated the range of their offensive skills and scored points in three separate rounds. Were.

Here are five Futures players who stood out on All-Star Saturday at Globe Life Field:

Roman Anthony’s Red Sox

Let’s start with the winner of the inaugural Skills Showcase, a 20-year-old outfielder who was one of the big breakout prospects of 2023. Although he scored barely any points in the first two rounds, focusing on hitting balls on target and certain squares on the field, his early struggles faded when he became focused on a much simpler task in the third and final round. :Hitting dingers. A series of consecutive home runs earned Anthony enough bonus points to return strongly to the top of the leaderboard, and he got the crowd in attendance more excited than in any previous round. What a surprise: People just want to see dingers!

It was a remarkable display of power for a prospect who is known more for his all-round offensive profile than just his tape measure. Anthony only has 10 home runs in 66 Double-A games this year, but as one of the young players in the Eastern League he has 15 doubles and a .350 OBP, indicative of his offensive potential. Along with catcher Kyle Teal and shortstop Marcelo Meyer — also in Arlington for the Futures Game festivities — Anthony is the third member of a position-player trio that should arrive in Boston sometime in 2025.

Reds 3B Cam Collier

Although he is two years removed from being Cincinnati’s first-round pick in 2022, Collier was still one of the youngest players on the Futures Game roster, as he won’t turn 20 until November. The son of former big-league infielder Lou Collier, Cam graduated from high school early and enrolled at a junior college in Florida, where he could raise his draft stock against older rivals – adopted by Bryce Harper. Similar to the way, although with much less publicity. , The plan generally worked: despite falling to the 18th pick, Collier received the 10th-highest signing bonus ($5M) in his class as one of the more promising young hitters available. His early returns in pro ball have been mixed, but his home run to start the scoring in the Futures Game was enough to earn him the game’s MVP award.

In just two plate appearances, Collier’s performance was a solid distillation of why there is reason to be excited about his ability and also why there is reason to be skeptical. In his first at-bat, he blasted a 405-foot single into the bullpen to right-center field off of Angels right-hander Caden Dana’s 94 mph fastball to give the NL an early 1–0 lead. It was a familiar scene for Collier in the first half, with his 13 homers tied for third in the High-A Midwest League, an impressive mark for one of the few teenagers on the circuit.

However, in his second at-bat, Collier struck out against White Sox southpaw Noah Schultz in an inning in which Schultz otherwise allowed three hits and a walk, a stark example of Collier’s extreme struggles against lefties this season. Reminder: He hit .128/. He hit .171/.218 in 82 plate appearances, while hitting a .269/.355/.472 line in 248 plate appearances against right-handed batters. Collier’s ability to get his raw power into games continues to improve, but how his overall hit tool develops against better pitching in the coming years will go a long way in determining his chances of becoming an impactful big-league player. Will decide the way.

RHP meets Brandon Sproat

New York’s second-round selection from the University of Florida in 2023 — and also, strangely, its third-round selection in 2022, when he decided not to sign and instead returned to school for his senior year — Sprott took two Throwed the hardest pitches of the Futures Game, with a pair of sinkers clocked at 99.2 mph in the third inning. He also threw a four-seamer that topped out at 98.9, making him the latest hard-throwing pitcher to feature two different fastballs at the top of his arsenal.

Sprott has been one of the most effective starting pitching prospects in the Minors this season, with his 1.71 ERA and .167 batting average, which rank third among all minor-league arms with at least 70 innings pitched. His progress toward becoming a legitimate top 100 prospect is a huge development for a Mets farm system hungry for impact pitching.

A’s RHP Luis Morales

Morales, a lanky, 21-year-old right-hander, ranked just behind Sprott with the second-highest velocity in the game, as his two best bolts came at 99.1 mph. When he signed with Oakland out of Cuba a few years ago, he received the highest signing bonus ($3M) of any pitcher in his international amateur class, and that has been evident since the beginning of his professional career. It has become clearly clear.

In addition to his high-end heat, Morales can swing it with the best of them. His slider recorded a spin rate of 2,998, the highest of any individual pitch in the Futures Game, and both his slider and curveball averaged nearly 2,900 RPM, which would be among the best in MLB. Still in High-A and making only brief starts as he slowly increases his workload, Morales is probably a few years away from pitching for the A’s. That said, he clearly has one of the highest ceilings of any pitcher in Oakland’s system.

brave c drake baldwin

In the top of the sixth inning, Baldwin hit his second home run of the game out of the bullpen to left-center field, an impressive, opposite-field shot that came off the bat at 107.5 mph – the highest of any batted ball. Exit Velocity This Year’s Futures Game. My personal favorite in the 2022 draft, Baldwin has quickly climbed the minor-league ladder and was promoted to Triple-A last month. The timing of the promotion seemed somewhat odd, considering he had a .650 OPS in 52 Double-A games, but apparently Atlanta had seen enough to believe that Baldwin could make a leap.

And it looks like they were right: Baldwin has hit .309/.440/.532 in 24 Triple-A contests, with more walks than strikeouts. In an extremely shallow Braves farm system relatively devoid of impact position players, Baldwin has emerged as perhaps the most promising bat. As for whether he’ll eventually replace Sean Murphy as Atlanta’s primary backstop or be traded away for a more pressing position of need? That’s a question for another day.