I found out a few hours before the Futures Game that the Skills Showcase Challenge won’t air live after the seventh inning. Instead, it will be available on tape delay the next morning (today) at 10 a.m. EST. Perhaps that’s for the best in the sense that this event is new, and the league has no idea how it’s really going to play out, and certainly has no idea how to broadcast it before it happens. I figured it was pretty intuitive: show the hitter, show the hit, show the hitter, show the hit, and so on, but maybe it’s not that simple, and maybe it’s on tape delay for other reasons than trust in competence. I’m sure they want to have some kind of post-game show and include an interview or two. Whatever the reason, the showcase is probably on right now if you’re reading this as part of a Sunday morning routine.
For some quick history, here’s the last ten winners in order, starting with the most recent: Nasim Nunez, Shea Langeliers, Brennen Davis, Sam Huff, Taylor Trammell, Brent Honeywell Jr., Yoan Moncada, Kyle Schwarber, Joey Gallo, Matt Davidson.
Mixed bag. Afonso Soriano was the first MVP in 1999, and he’s probably the best player to have won the award in the game’s quarter century. Here’s a link to the list.
This year’s game itself was pretty typical. Pitchers gassed it up. The broadcast was awkward. Somebody slightly less than famous (Reds 3B Cam Collier) grabbed a bunch of eyeballs early by hitting a fairly standard home run against a middle-middle meatball, no offense to Caden Dana, who isn’t accustomed to entering a game in the third inning and bounced back nicely after the bomb, and no offense to Cam Collier, who earned his MVP award fair and square.
Rangers RHP Emiliano Teodo looked incredible right off the jump, cruising through two scoreless innings for the American League. He repeats his delivery so well you could freeze frame ten different pitches at any point in the delivery and they’d all look the same. His value seems to be all over the place in the dynasty realm partly because some have clocked his 6’1” 165 lb frame and ticketed him for the bullpen, and I think that outcome is pretty far down the probability chain at this point. He looks like a no-doubt starter to me. He’s got a 1.71 ERA and 89 strikeouts across 68.1 Double-A innings and shouldn’t be in Double-a much longer.
The stadium was pumping so much volume through the PA system that the in-game interviews were nigh impossible to hear, which made the split screen that much more infuriating. In the bottom of the third inning, while the broadcast group was asking AL Manager Michael Young vanilla questions and he was mumbling through vanilla answers, I damn near switched the sound off and went with a musical overlay. Then I remembered I was writing this game up and forced myself to listen. Might’ve made the wrong call there. But it was funny to hear Melanie Newman say after an interview with Cam Collier that “they all kind of have that same message” in reference to what Collier had heard from his dad, who played pro ball himself. And it’s true. We had heard the same interview no less than four times by the top of the fourth inning. Collier was also the first hitter to challenge a called strike, which just touched the top of the strike zone against White Sox LHP Noah Schultz. Probably my favorite part of the game. Man, we need that challenge system in the majors.
Credit to the broadcast crew: they pretty much quit it with the interviews and the split screen after the next one, which was also impossible to hear, and when they did go down to talk to someone at field level, they had a reporter right there with a microphone, which only partially worked but felt like an improvement nonetheless. MLB has made an effort to improve its marketing approach, especially insofar as young players are concerned, but it’s still not the gold standard.
Another relative unknown made some waves when Braves C Drake Baldwin blasted an opposite field home run. I’m guessing he’s on the trade block right now given Atlanta’s depth. Makes for a nice dynasty pickup given that he’s already playing well in Triple-A, slashing .309/.440/.532 with six home runs and a 19 percent-to-12.9 percent walk-to-strikeout rate.
It’s hard to say somebody lost any dynasty value during a seven-inning exhibition, but Nationals OF Dylan Crews took some some strays during the broadcast, who agreed he was something of a ho-hum, 25-homer, gets-his-numbers-by-season’s-end type of compiler who doesn’t have great speed but knows how to swipe a base. That’s been pretty much my read all along, but it was kind of odd to hear it during what’s meant to be a two-hour hype fest.
Marlins RHP Noble Meyer looked impressive as did teammate Thomas White.
White Sox LHP Noah Schultz wore the hair shirt but pretty much just got dinked and dunked. Didn’t seem like anyone could pick the ball up out of his hand. I think he’d have settled in and started cruising if this were a regular game.
Thanks for reading!
