Cooper: Aggravating Changes Can’t Dim Allure Of The Futures Game

Image credit: (Photo by Rob Tringali/Getty Images)

CLEVELAND — As he swung for the fences during the Junior Home Run Derby in Miami in 2017, Jarred Kelenic took a look at the top prospects who had gathered to watch the teenagers grip it and rip it.

After hitting in a big league ballpark, Kelenic made a prediction to his family.

“I told my parents and I told my agent two years ago that I was going to be in this game (the Futures Game) in two years. And the fact that it came true is pretty special,” said Kelenic, who is now the top prospect in the Mariners’ organization.

Kelenic’s prediction is a reminder of just how important the Futures Game can be. His next dream is to become a big leaguer, and he viewed the Futures Game as an important step along that path.

Player after player talked after the game about how much this day meant.

“It was more than I could have expected. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life,” Indians third baseman Nolan Jones said. “It’s a small club. When you look around this room, there are a ton of incredible ballplayers here.”

Inside the sport, the Futures Game is a very big deal. It’s been a massive success. Players truly care about the game and the validation that it brings. It’s one of the biggest honors a minor leaguer can receive short of a callup to the majors.

From the outside, even 20 years after it began, it’s still the game that fails to fully find a fit in MLB’s All-Star weekend. It’s a niche product in a mass-market sport.

The Futures Game is one of the best niche products around. For diehard baseball fans, it cannot be topped. On one field, we all can see 50 of the best prospects in baseball playing in one game.

The AFL Fall Stars game is great, but it doesn’t have the pitching of the Futures Game. No minor league all-star game can come close to the overwhelming talent of the Futures Game rosters. On one field in one game, we saw Royce Lewis, Gavin Lux, Carter Kieboom and Wander Franco all play shortstop. Luis Robert and Jo Adell stood side-by-side in the American League outfield. Nate Pearson’s 102 mph fastballs followed excellent outings by Ian Anderson and Deivi Garcia.

It’s great. It’s everything Baseball America dreamed up when it first proposed a prospect game in the early years of the magazine.

But it’s a niche.

The casual All-Star weekend baseball fan loves the celebrity softball game as much as the Futures Game.

Stop.

Let’s be honest. They like the softball game more.

MLB provides each team with two complimentary scout seats for the Futures Game and teams can purchase additional scout seats. But those seats were not right behind home plate—the place scouts need to be to do their jobs. The scouts’ seats ended up being in the rows behind the on-deck circle.

When some teams asked why their seats weren’t behind home plate, they were told that was the best MLB could do, but hopefully seats would open up because fans would leave when the celebrity softball game wrapped up. And that’s exactly what happened. As the softball game finished, fans left and a slew of scouts picked up their backpacks and found new spots behind home plate.

MLB Network’s broadcast of the Futures Game had a lot of great moments—the insights gained from having so many players mic’d up was excellent—we heard Padres righthander Luis Patino’s plan to attack Jo Adell to finish the game. Royce Lewis’ in-game audio was excellent. Taylor Trammell’s interview right after he tried to steal home was better than almost any in-game interview at an MLB game.

And former Baseball America staffer and now MLB Pipeline analyst Jim Callis had a great moment where he effectively called Sam Huff’s game-tying home run just before the ball left Huff’s bat.

But any kudos about the telecast were more than drowned out by complaints from hardcore baseball fans that the early innings of the broadcast were spent reminiscing with Hall of Famer Ken Griffey Jr. while rarely analyzing the prospects on the field. MLB Network was attempting to put a wrapper around the Futures Game that made it more approachable to the casual fan by bringing on an all-time great. To the diehard fan, that approach meant there wasn’t enough time to talk about Franco, MacKenzie Gore and other stars of the future. The friction of casual fans versus the diehards makes the Futures Game broadcast a difficult tightrope.

The Futures Game was moved to a prime-time slot this year, as it swapped positions with the Celebrity Softball Game that has usually been All-Star Sunday’s nightcap. But in the trade, the game was cut from nine innings to seven. The reasoning was to make sure the game finished quickly enough to not delay a postgame Joan Jett concert and fireworks.

In the scouting and baseball community, the switch to AL/NL rosters from World versus U.S. was well received. MLB’s intent was to better represent MLB clubhouses—where there is a healthy mix of players from all over the world. Now both teams had a blend of U.S. and international players. In the switch, the rosters were improved, as the new flexibility made it a little easier to fill out the rosters.

In conversations with scouts and front office officials as well as diehard baseball fans, the switch to seven innings was almost universally panned. Yes, it’s an all-star game and no one really cares who wins—clearly, because the game finished without a winner. But this is the best showcase of the season for minor league prospects. It’s the biggest honor a minor leaguer can receive other than a callup to the majors, and if the American League had not rallied in the bottom of the seventh, four different pitchers would have not gotten into the game. As it was, even with an extra inning, two pitchers didn’t pitch.

Maybe it’s an impossible dream to believe that the Futures Game could ever be treated as the ultimate service to baseball’s biggest fans. The attempts to dress up the game in a way to try to also appeal to more casual fans will likely continue.

But for diehard baseball nuts, it’s worth a lot of aggravation. Because the Futures Game remains an event seemingly too good to be true.