By Jake Mintz
FOX Sports MLB Writer
LOS ANGELES — There was a changing of the guard Saturday at the MLB All-Star Futures Game.
The consensus top-five prospects in baseball before this season — Adley Rutschman, Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodríguez, Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene — are all now in the big leagues.
Rodríguez made the All-Star team as a rookie. Rutschman is starting behind the plate for the red-hot O’s. Witt is ripping laser beams all over the diamond in K.C.
The future stars of the past are now major-leaguers of the present … or something like that.
That created something of a void atop the prospect rankings and meant Saturday’s Futures Game at Dodger Stadium was an opportunity for a new batch of talented youngsters to establish themselves as the next “next generation.”
And while most of the top picks in Sunday’s MLB Draft are years away from contributing at the big-league level, there were a plethora of players in the Futures Game who could make an impact as soon as next season.
With that in mind, here are four major takeaways from the 2022 Futures Game.
The Mets have the top prospect in baseball.
Technically, Greene, the Detroit Tigers‘ outfielder, still classifies as a prospect, but he’ll soon lose rookie status and will officially “graduate” from prospect lists.
Whenever that happens, it will leave Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez atop the rankings, and during pregame batting practice Saturday, Álvarez showed why. The stocky 20-year-old was absolutely crushing the ball to all fields, putting his impressive power on display.
In the game, Álvarez had a walk and grounded out in his only other at-bat (granted, it was a 100 mph groundout), but his pregame performance was a great reminder of just how dynamic a prospect he has become.
While he isn’t a superb defensive catcher, Álvarez is perfectly fine back there and has a bat that would make him a promising player at any position but is downright magnificent for a catcher.
Four years younger than the average Double-A player, Álvarez destroyed the competition anyway this season, to the tune of a .922 OPS in 67 games. He got a deserved call-up to Triple-A a few weeks ago.
Whether the Venezuelan backstop gets the call down the stretch this year — it’s rare for contending teams to call up young catchers in the heat of a pennant race — or makes his debut next year, Álvarez is a guy Mets fans can legitimately be excited about.
Masyn Winn might have the best infield arm ever.
Cardinals shortstop prospect Masyn Winn still can’t legally purchase an adult beverage, but he has shot up prospect lists this year, thanks to a .300 average and 25 steals across two levels of the minors. But even though Winn’s bat has opened eyes this season, his arm is the real jaw-dropping aspect of his game.
In the second inning of the Futures Game, Winn scooped up what looked to be a routine grounder off the bat of Astros catcher Yainer Diaz. He gathered, took a few shuffles toward first base and then unleashed a brain-melting, 100.5 mph throw. It was the single hardest infield throw ever tracked by Statcast.
After the game, Winn admitted that he was trying to throw it as hard as he could.
“That’s probably the hardest ball I’ve ever thrown,” he told FOX Sports. “I was definitely trying to let it loose.”
It shouldn’t come as a shock that Winn was getting looks out of high school as a pitcher, but to see a player hit triple digits while throwing across the diamond is just wild.
Winn is a different style of prospect: great bat-to-ball skills, good not great power, superb speed and, obviously, a rocket arm.
The Jasson Dominguez Hype Train continues.
Yes, Yankees prospect Jasson Dominguez is good at baseball. Let’s get that out of the way.
But at times, the hype around the 19-year-old outfielder has surpassed the reality of his skill set. Part of that is he’s a member of the most popular baseball organization in the world, part of that is because he received a ton of attention as an amateur player in the Dominican Republic, and part that is the fact that people generally overvalue prospects.
A “Jasson Dominguez 2020 Bowman Sapphire Padparadscha PSA 9” card is currently available on eBay for $199,999.99. (Good thing it’s not 200K).
At the Futures Game, Dominguez only tossed more coal into the engine of his hype train by smashing a 107 mph, 415-foot bomb in the top of the third.
There was a magical laser beam.
Only 13 MLB players have hit a home run 116 mph or harder this season; 116 mph is truly in the frozen-rope category. Ronald Acuña Jr. has done it twice this year; Aaron Judge just three times.
At the Futures Game, Twins outfield prospect Matt Wallner joined the club by zipping his own 116 mph big fly down the line in right.
Wallner is a mountain of a man, a behemoth outfielder with top-of-the-scale raw pop who might need to shift to first base or designated hitter down the road.
That’s a problem for another day, though, because on Saturday, Wallner joined a very exclusive club. There are precious few humans on earth who can hit a ball 116; Matt Wallner is one of those.
Jake Mintz is the louder half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball writer for FOX Sports. He’s an Orioles fan living in New York City, and thus, he leads a lonely existence most Octobers. If he’s not watching baseball, he’s almost certainly riding his bike. You can follow him on Twitter at @Jake_Mintz.
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