DENVER — Major League Baseball announced the rosters for the All-Stars Futures Game on Tuesday.
The annual exhibition is designed to pit the brightest stars in the Minor Leagues on a national stage against each other and — as the name implies — showcase the future of the game of baseball. Two Colorado Rockies farmhands will play in the game that will take place at 7:00 PM EST on Sunday, July 10th.
Right-handed pitcher Jeff Hoffman was the centerpiece of the Troy Tulowitzki trade and has mostly excelled in his season thus far in Triple-A Albuquerque, posting an ERA of 3.49 (very good in the PCL) and striking out 88 batters over 87 innings pitched. Hoffman will be one of the youngsters in this game closest to The Show, and it will be the first time many Rockies fans will have the chance to see him on television since coming over in the trade.
Outfielder Raimel Tapia is the hitting genius that the Rockies signed as a 16-year old out of the Dominican Republic. The lowest batting average he has posted since his 2012 campaign in the DSL was .305 last season for High-A Modesto. In each of those years, Tapia has recorded more hits than games played in. He showed well at the Major League camp during spring training but got off to a slow start (by his standards) in his first month at Double-A Hartford.
Tapia has turned things around so dramatically that he now sits at a .317 batting average over his first 71 games at the level. 91 hits in 71 games.
MLB describes the selection process:
Major League Baseball, in conjunction with MLB.com, Baseball America and the 30 Major League Clubs, selected the 25 players currently on each team. Each Major League organization is represented and players from all full-season Minor Leagues were eligible to be selected. Complete Futures Game rosters, prospect analysis and rankings can be found at MLB.com/pipeline.
The teams feature 15 former first round draft picks (14 on U.S. Team and one on World Team), one player picked in Compensation Round A (U.S. Team) and four second round picks (all U.S.). Among the 15 first round picks, seven were selected in the 2015 Draft, one in the 2014 Draft and seven in the 2013 Draft.
