Top 6 moments from the 2025 All-Star Futures Game

July 12th, 2025

ATLANTA -- The All-Star Futures Game puts the game’s best prospects on one field for an afternoon each July, creating lasting memories for both players and fans.

There was the Alfonso Soriano two-homer game at the first edition in Boston back in 1999. More recently, Pete Alonso crushed a moonshot in Washington that was the first in the Statcast Era to exceed both 113 mph in exit velocity and 40 degrees in launch angle. Speaking of velocity, newly named All-Star Jacob Misiorowski threw 11 fastballs between 100 and 102.4 mph during his Futures Game appearance in 2023 in Seattle, and Masyn Winn touched 100.5 mph from shortstop a year earlier in Los Angeles.

The 2025 edition -- held Saturday at Atlanta’s Truist Park -- was no different. The National League took the crown, 4-2, over the American League side, led by Larry Doby MVP award winner and top Dodgers prospect Josue De Paula, who hit the game’s only homer. These are some of the top moments from this year’s Futures Game:

MVP De Paula brings fireworks
The comparison you’ll hear most often for Dodgers top prospect Josue De Paula (No. 27 overall) is Yordan Alvarez. They’re both hulking left-handed hitters who may only need their offensive games to be valuable in The Show. On Saturday, De Paula did something Alvarez never did: He homered in a Futures Game. The 20-year-old slugger connected on a hanging slider from White Sox southpaw Noah Schultz and drove it 416 feet to right-center. The three-run shot had an exit velocity of 108.5 mph, the hardest-hit ball of the afternoon at the time. De Paula entered the weekend with 10 homers in 78 games with High-A Great Lakes, tying his career high set one year ago. The Los Angeles outfielder worked out with Juan Soto and Elly De La Cruz in the Dominican Republic in the offseason and has seen that preparation carry into 2025.

“[I learned] a lot of things, mostly on the mental side,” he told MLB.com’s Andrés Soto in Spanish before the game. “How they work, how they approach the season, how to manage yourself in a long season like the ones in the big leagues, things like that.”

De Paula is only the second Dodger to homer in a Futures Game, the other being Alfredo Silverio in 2011, and the second to win MVP (Chin-lung Hu, 2007).

Caldwell looks golden
The defensive highlight of the day came in the final inning. With two outs in the top of the seventh, D-backs No. 2 prospect Slade Caldwell sprinted forward and dove to make a hit-saving catch against a ball hit by top Yankees talent George Lombard Jr. Considered a plus-plus runner out of a 5-foot-9 frame, Caldwell fit Arizona’s mold of taking undersized but toolsy up-the-middle players when he joined the organization as the No. 29 pick in last year’s Draft. The 19-year-old is already up with High-A Hillsboro in his first full season.

Tong perfect in second
Mets No. 2 prospect Jonah Tong leads the Minor Leagues with 125 strikeouts. So it was appropriate he began his only frame of the afternoon with a K, getting No. 5 Mariners prospect Harry Ford to whiff on a 77.2 mph curveball to end an eight-pitch at-bat in the second inning. The 22-year-old righty also got Josue Briceño (DET No. 4) to line out to short and Sebastian Walcott (MLB No. 4, TEX No. 1) to ground out to the same position to end his perfect inning. He touched 97.4 mph with the four-seamer that draws raves from evaluators for its ride up in the zone, never mind the velocity. Of the nine fastballs he threw, six ended up as whiffs or called strikes. His three total whiffs were tied for most in this year’s game, alongside Braves starter JR Ritchie.

Grissom vs. Grissom
Marquis Grissom -- the two-time All-Star and 1995 World Series champion with the Braves -- served as American League manager on Saturday. That meant he had to go against his son, Nationals right-handed pitching prospect Marquis Grissom Jr., who worked the fourth inning for the NL. The younger Grissom gave up a run in his lone frame after Josue Briceño tripled to right-center and scored on a Sebastian Walcott sacrifice fly to center. He sat 92-94 mph on his fastball and showed off his trademark mid-80s changeup while also mixing in two sliders and a cutter.

Cijntje switch pitches
Mariners No. 8 prospect Jurrangelo Cijntje has drawn plenty of attention in his first full season as a switch-pitcher, and he worked from both sides in the second inning, becoming the first such hurler in Futures Game history. The 2024 15th overall pick struck out a pair of National League batters: Top Brewers prospect Jesús Made (MLB No. 8) on an 85.5 mph breaker and No. 4 Marlins prospect Joe Mack on a 97 mph fastball, both as a righty pitcher. He threw only two pitches left-handed -- a 92.9 mph fastball and a 79.1 mph curveball -- but that’s all he needed to retire Josue De Paula on a fly ball to left. Cijntje touched as high as 98.7 mph from the right side, backing up many evaluators’ beliefs that his Major League future is as a full-time righty flamethrower.

Batting practice
Pregame BP is often a spectacle at showcases like the Futures Game, and Top 100 prospects took advantage of their time in the spotlight.

Pirates No. 2 prospect Konnor Griffin took vicious cuts with immense bat speed and impeccable barrel control, drawing praise from everyone around the cage. Brewers top prospect Jesús Made -- only 18 years old -- caught the attention of Braves legends Chipper Jones and Andruw Jones, both of whom looked at each other after the switch-hitter’s second swing and nodded at each other silently and approvingly. Tigers slugger Josue Briceño hit some of the farthest balls in BP and homered eight times in his round. Fred McGriff, acting as American League hitting coach, told Briceño’s group -- including Sebastian Walcott, Kevin McGonigle and Harry Ford -- they could get an extra swing if they “hit a bomb.” Each went deep shortly after, right on command.

Royals No. 3 prospect Carter Jensen, who has gone deep six times in 13 games since joining Triple-A Omaha, wasn’t about to let his opportunity go by either. The 22-year-old homered 10 times, including one off the top of the Chop House deck beyond right field.

"Fred [McGriff] said as I was going up there, ‘You have any pop?’ I was like, ‘I got pop,’” Jensen told MLB.com’s Anne Rogers postgame. “He said, ‘Let me see.’ So I had to show him.’”