ARLINGTON, Texas — First held in 1999, the All-Star Futures Game has long been an annual showcase of the game’s top prospects, who are invited to participate in a seven-inning exhibition as one of the first premier events of All-Star weekend.
In 2024, for the first time, MLB introduced a new element beyond the exhibition game: a hitting competition featuring a selection of eight young hitters showcasing their range of offensive skills and earning points across three different rounds.
Here are the five Futures Gamers who stood out on All-Star Saturday at Globe Life Field:
Red Sox OF Roman Anthony
Let’s begin with the winner of the inaugural Skills Showcase, the 20-year-old outfielder who was one of the bigger breakout prospects of 2023. Although he scored barely any points in the first two rounds, focused on hitting balls to targets and certain sections of the field, his early struggles were rendered moot when he caught fire in the third and final round centered on a much simpler task: hitting dingers. A streak of several home runs in a row earned Anthony enough bonus points to fuel a furious comeback all the way to the top of the leaderboard, and he had the crowd in attendance notably more enthused than during any of the previous rounds. What a surprise: People just want to watch dingers!
It was a notable display of power for a prospect known more for his all-around offensive profile and not strictly the tape measure. Anthony has only 10 home runs in 66 Double-A games this year but has 15 doubles and a .350 OBP as one of the younger players in the Eastern League, a sign of his offensive aptitude. Alongside catcher Kyle Teel and shortstop Marcelo Mayer — also in Arlington for the Futures Game festivities — Anthony is the third member of a position-player trio that should arrive in Boston at some point in 2025.
Reds 3B Cam Collier
Although he’s two years removed from being Cincinnati’s first-round pick in 2022, Collier was still one of the youngest players on the Futures Game rosters, as he doesn’t turn 20 until November. The son of former big-league infielder Lou Collier, Cam graduated high school early and enrolled at a junior college in Florida, where he could boost his draft stock against older competition — similar to the path taken by Bryce Harper, albeit with considerably less hype. The plan generally worked: Despite falling to the 18th pick, Collier received the 10th-highest signing bonus in his class ($5M) as one of the more promising young hitters available. Early returns on him in pro ball are mixed, but his home run to open 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 potential and also reason to be skeptical. In his first at-bat, he clobbered a 94 mph sinker from Angels right-hander Caden Dana into the bullpen in right-center field, a 405-foot solo blast to give the NL an early 1-0 lead. That’s a familiar sight for Collier in the first half, with his 13 homers ranking third in the High-A Midwest League, a stellar mark for one of the few teenagers on the circuit.
In his second at-bat, though, Collier struck out against White Sox southpaw Noah Schultz in an inning in which Schultz otherwise allowed three hits and a walk, a sobering reminder of Collier’s extreme struggles against lefties this season: He has hit .128/.171/.218 in 82 plate appearances compared to a .269/.355/.472 line in 248 plate appearances against right-handers. Collier’s ability to get to his raw power in games seems to be getting better, but how his overall hit tool develops against better pitching in the coming years will go a long way in determining the likelihood of him becoming an impact big-league player.
Mets RHP Brandon Sproat
New York’s second-round pick out of the University of Florida in 2023 — and also, strangely, its third-round pick in 2022, when he chose not to sign and instead returned to school for his senior year — Sproat threw the two hardest pitches of Futures Game, with a pair of sinkers in the third inning at 99.2 mph. He also threw a four-seamer that topped out at 98.9, making him the latest hard-throwing pitcher to showcase two different fastballs atop his arsenal.
Sproat has been one of the most effective starting pitching prospects in the minors this season, with his 1.71 ERA and .167 batting average against both ranking third among all minor-league arms with at least 70 innings pitched. His progression toward being a legitimate top-100 prospect is a huge development for a Mets farm system starving for impact pitching.
A’s RHP Luis Morales
Morales, a lanky, 21-year-old right-hander, ranked just behind Sproat with the second-highest velocity of the game, as his two best bolts clocked in at 99.1 mph. He received the highest signing bonus ($3M) of any pitcher in his international amateur class when he signed with Oakland out of Cuba a few years ago, and the stuff has been readily apparent since his pro career began.
In addition to his high-end heat, Morales can also spin it with the best of ‘em. His slider registered a spin rate of 2,998, the highest of any individual pitch in the Futures Game, and both his slider and curveball averaged around 2,900 RPM, which would rank among the best in MLB. Still in High-A and making only abbreviated starts as he slowly builds his workload, Morales is probably a few years away from pitching for the A’s. That said, he clearly has one of the higher ceilings of any pitcher in Oakland’s system.
Braves C Drake Baldwin
In the top of the sixth inning, Baldwin pummeled the game’s second home run out to the bullpen in left-center field, an impressive, opposite-field shot that came off the bat at 107.5 mph — the highest exit velocity of any batted ball in this year’s Futures Game. A personal favorite of mine 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 that he had a .650 OPS in 52 Double-A games, but clearly Atlanta had seen enough to believe Baldwin could handle a jump up.
And it seems they were correct: Baldwin has hit .309/.440/.532 in 24 Triple-A contests, with more walks than strikeouts. In an ultra-shallow Braves farm system relatively bereft of impact position players, Baldwin has emerged as perhaps the most promising bat. As for whether he’ll eventually supplant Sean Murphy as Atlanta’s primary backstop or be dealt away in a trade for a more pressing position of need? That’s a question for another day.
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