When it comes to All-Star week, my favorite event isn't the headline game itself, but the Futures Game. The All-Star Game was big for me when I was a kid -- 1989, the year of Bo Jackson homering off Rick Reuschel is is burned into my head -- but in a world with interleague play, it doesn't feel like we see a lot in the All-Star Game that we don't already see on a day-to-day basis.
But the Futures Game is different. There, you get to get a sneak peek into the crystal ball and see some of baseball's upcoming stars participate in their first battles against each other. Pete Alonso was already making his name for himself in a big 2018 season in the minor leagues, but it was his massive home run in the Futures Game that summer that heralded his arrival in the public consciousness.
As someone who also makes a lot of predictions as my occupation, that just makes the game even more interesting to me. As is my wont, I ran up-to-date ZiPS projections for each player in the Futures Game to find which 10 players have the brightest future. Projection systems tend to look for different things than scouts do and are more excited than their flesh-and-blood counterparts about some players with lower ceilings but higher floors. That said, some of ZiPS' favorite players as prospects included Aaron Nola, Kyle Hendricks and Eugenio Suarez, and they've turned out more than OK.
So, enough with the preludes, let's get to the players:
