Random Musings From The Futures Game

Bryan Smith will take a more specific look at some of the prospects and how they performed in the Futures Game in a subsequent post, and so instead of trying to add to what he’s already done, I’m going to take a different tact. Here are my somewhat random observations from being at the game.

Bryan touched on this in the last podcast, but MLB has to do away with the US vs World format. There is no reason to separate the teams that way, and it leads to a ridiculous imbalance that gives us a game that is far less than what it could be. In talking to baseball people at the game, it was pretty much unanimous that this year’s World Team was as bad as any in recent year, and watching them take BP was almost painful. Realistically, Brett Lawrie was the only guy who started for the World Team who could have cracked the US line-up, and he was followed in the World batting order by eight guys who probably didn’t deserve to even be at the game.

Just throw this format away, go to an AL/NL match-up, and give those of us who enjoy this event the game that it should be. I get that there are extenuating circumstances that keep this from being a true showcase of the 40 or 50 best guys in the minors each summer, but we don’t need to compound those unavoidable issues with a format that forces guys with no major league future to take a spot from far more interesting players. Any format that makes you feature Wilkin Ramirez is irreparably broken. Let’s just get rid of this US vs World theme and start over.

Moving on to guys who belonged here, Mike Trout. Almost all of my pre-game discussions inevitably drifted to how good he was, and that was before he put on a show in both BP and the game itself. Sometimes, the hype train runs out of control on guys like this, but with him, it’s deserved. If he’s not the best prospect in the game right now, he’s close to it, and he doesn’t turn 19 until next month. Crazy good.

You know what’s not crazy good though? Between innings “entertainment” consisting of big screen pong, complete with ridiculously annoying sound effects and no explanation of why we were getting tortured by this randomness. Donkey Kong wasn’t much better. Whichever person in the Angels organization gave that idea the green light deserves a sentence of having to watch every Scott Kazmir outing from now to infinity.

Anyway, I would say a good time was had by all, but I think a few people trying to arrive early for the Legends/Celebrity softball game weren’t so amused to find an actual game being played by kids they’d never heard of still in progress. Besides those folks, however, the game was generally successful, though could obviously be improved upon. Getting to watch the game with Bryan, as well as Rich and Joe Lederer (both good folks), made it even more enjoyable. I look forward to attending more of these in person, and can’t wait for next year’s AL/NL version – right, MLB?