The Futures Game took place Sunday afternoon, which is also Draft Day, and also featured a full slate of MLB games, so you can be forgiven if you didn’t watch. It was a seven-inning affair that took nearly three hours, featuring a lot of homers, some big velocity, and more mid-inning pitching changes than you’d get if Tony LaRussa coached both teams in a Tuesday night college game.
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Brennen Davis was the standout, with two homers, both bombs, one off a 95 mph fastball right down the pipe, the other off a hanging curveball from a right-handed reliever. He also punched out on 98 middle-up in an earlier at-bat. Davis was a projection pick when the Cubs first took him in 2018, and now he’s starting to show more of the power they foresaw, already posting a .203 ISO in 31 games since a promotion to Double A.
The lopsided result — the NL won 8-3, and it was 8-0 until the seventh inning — might mask how many good arms were on display Sunday. The Nationals’ Cade Cavalli and the Yankees’ Luis Medina hit 100 mph multiple times; Cavalli also showed off a plus changeup that keeps getting better and flashed a slider, while Medina was undermined by his infielders and his own wildness but showed power to the breaking ball and flashed a changeup. I’m hoping to see Medina in Wilmington later this week. For overall stuff, though, I’d pick either Angels lefty Reid Detmers or Rays right-hander Shane Baz. Detmers has seen a big velocity uptick since he was drafted last year, touching 97 in starts this year, and he was 93-95 at the Futures Game with four pitches, a slider that flashed plus and good arm speed on the changeup. He faced only two batters — more on that later — but struck both out. Baz has always had a tremendous arm, hitting 98 in high school, and he was 95-99 on Sunday with a filthy mid-80s changeup that was so good he tripled up on it to a lefty.
We also saw some great stuff from Cardinals lefty Matt Liberatore, who started the game for the NL. Liberatore went to St. Louis in the Randy Arozarena trade, resulting in a lot of teeth-gnashing in September and October when Arozarena turned into Babe Ruth for the Rays. Liberatore looked outstanding, driving 94-95 down in the zone with four pitches, showing a good feel for the change and spin on both breaking balls (although I didn’t see actual spin rates). Cole Winn started for the AL and was 93-95 with a plus changeup, by far his best secondary pitch, while his slider was just fair, and he hung one for a homer.
The Marlins showed off two premium arms from last year’s draft. Max Meyer was 94-96 but had a little trouble landing his secondary pitches before he was pulled after two batters, presumably because it was past his bedtime. Lefty Jake Eder was 95-96 with a change and curveball, both potentially above average, but he was also pulled after two batters, after which Milwaukee’s Ethan Small came in with a gas can and got tagged for three runs. (He’s a future reliever between his extremely high slot and marginal fastball.)
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The Twins sent right-hander Josh Winder, who comes from a pretty high slot himself, coming downhill with 95-96 and a plus slider that is going to miss a lot of bats. He has a starter’s build and threw one changeup in the dirt for a strikeout; if that’s a real third option for him, he gives the Twins yet another promising starting pitching prospect behind Jordan Balazovic and Jhoan Duran.
Lefty Cole Ragans was 92-93, giving up a home run on a center-cut fastball, but the fact that the Rangers prospect was in the game at all is a great story. He had Tommy John surgery after the 2017 season but tore the new ligament as well and had to have a revision surgery, meaning a second Tommy John. Between that and the pandemic, he did not pitch in a game between August 2017 and this spring.
Returning to the hitting side, Bobby Witt Jr. led off for the American League and showed off great bat speed and hard contact on legit fastballs in both plate appearances, even though he didn’t get a hit to show for it. His BP was interesting to watch — he started out like he was just going for contact, staying upright through the ball and still driving it, but as the rounds progressed he would get more uphill and buckle his back knee. He’s a great prospect, but I wonder if he’ll have to solidify that part of his approach when he gets to the majors. Still, he got to 94 and 97 on those two lineouts, and that’s pretty impressive for a 21-year-old with limited pro experience. His teammate Nick Pratto brought his new swing, which generated some impressive power in BP.
The AL had a trio of Latin American prospects I was especially excited to see, since I’d never seen any of them play live before. The Yankees’ Jasson Dominguez is a ridiculously strong, maxed-out 18-year-old, with a fluid right-handed swing but a more disconnected left-handed swing. He lined out hard to third base on a changeup from lefty Nick Lodolo (who was 95-97 with a good change and some trouble finishing his normally plus slider), then struck out twice, getting depantsed by Cavalli on 98 mph up and striking out from the right side on a changeup away. He’s a talented player, but he was the youngest player here by a long shot, and it showed.
White Sox outfielder Yoelkis Céspedes looks somewhat like his brother, with a deep load and a huge swing that generates big power, but his two at-bats were unimpressive and it looked like he was guessing on at least some of the pitches he saw. Houston’s lone representative was Cuban outfielder Pedro León, who showed a short swing in BP that generated just warning-track power; he struck out on a changeup away in his lone at-bat.
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The Tigers’ two prospects, Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene, were both impressive in BP, and Greene carried it over to the game, showing he could turn on velocity. Torkelson had a great BP and hit one groundball single in the game as well as drawing a walk.
Austin Martin was Toronto’s lone representative, with a surprising inside-out swing that seems like it’ll rob him of power, although in the game he took a great at-bat to draw a walk, then later stayed on a changeup down and away to bloop a single the other way. At shortstop, he muffed a hard line drive that he should have caught, and his arm still doesn’t appear to be what it was before his junior year.
Seattle outfielder Julio Rodríguez, the team’s No. 2 prospect, stayed in for the entire game and was the only player to get four plate appearances. But he struck out in three of them, swinging through all four pitch types in those at-bats, while drawing a seven-pitch walk in the fourth. His BP was extremely impressive, but there’s going to be some swing and miss here, even with the great success he’s had so far in the minors at such a young age.
Finally, I can’t omit mention of how unwatchable this game has become with all the mid-inning pitching changes. Pitchers should be allowed to throw up to 20 pitches before they’re pulled, and mid-inning pitching changes — which exist here to try to get more pitchers into the game — should be reserved for emergencies, when a kid can’t throw a strike or gets hit too hard. This game was 6 1/2 innings and took over two and a half hours. Nobody wants that. I’d be fine with a three-hour game if it were nine innings and we saw more players that way. If MLB is determined to keep this a seven-inning affair, then we have to have pitchers completing more innings so it has the flow and feel of a regular game, and fewer breaks in the action.
(Photo of Davis: Dustin Bradford / Getty Images)
