After battling some injuries in 2023, Romo got back on track both defensively and at the plate in Triple-A Albuquerque this year, setting a career best with an .838 OPS while also establishing new highs with 14 homers and 60 RBI. But we remember his best from his time with the Scorpions in 2019, where he starred on a loaded team at our National Tournaments that also included Dylan Crews, CJ Kayfus and fellow Rockies farmhand Zac Veen.

We caught up with Drew for this exclusive interview towards the end of last season. Below, see some footage of Romo playing with the Future Stars Series back in 2019.

The post Reports: Romo set to become fifth FSS alum to reach majors appeared first on Future Stars Series.

Mother Nature ultimately forced the postponement of the scheduled testing day on Tuesday, but the tournament itself mostly went off without a hitch, comprised of 12 teams in three separate pools that featured some of the top 2027 and 2028 Draft-eligible players, as well as a handful of younger talent playing up. With the event mostly slated to be played at historic Shelby Park, there were also some pool play games held at Goodpasture Christian Academy, as well as a late adjustment for a return to The Webb School for three contests on Friday when rain delayed the start of games for three hours.

POOL A

BPA 4-0
LB21 3-1
NorCal 1-3
FSS Mid-South 1-3

POOL B

GamePrep 4-0
Sandlot 3-1
Trombly 2028 1-3
Citius 0-4

POOL C

Trombly 4-0
LB21 2028 2-2
Expos 1-3
The Prospect Lab 0-4

Three teams ran the gauntlet in pool play; BPA, Trombly Baseball’s 2027 team and GamePrep all went 4-0 and all earned first round byes, as did a talented Sandlot team that only suffered a one-run loss to GamePrep in pool play early on.

In the end, four teams were left standing on the last day, with LB21 and BPA set to square off for the 2028 Grad Class National Championship, while the FSS Mid-South team — formerly the Sports Academy club, and one that made a stunning run through the playoffs after going 1-3 in pool play — was up against LB21’s other team at the event for the 2027 Grad Class National Championship.

BPA dominated their game at Mickey Hiter Field, getting a complete game shutout from Quincy Pratt, one of two younger brothers of FSS alum Cooper Pratt playing at the event, to take the 2028 title in six innings via run rule. On Old Timers Field, however, a much more competitive game for the title unfolded; FSS Mid-South got off to an early lead and ultimately never looked back against a fiesty LB21 team to take the 2027 title.

Below, find All-Tournament and All-Prospect teams from the event, as selected by the scouting staff present:

Find social media coverage of the event here, with plenty more available on all platforms where FSS can be found.

That’s a 9-6 win for the FSS Mid-South team, who beat a really strong LB21 squad to win the 2027 national championship. pic.twitter.com/ypWkX8jodJ

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 4, 2024

It’s a walk-off win. @BPAtravelball are 2028 grad class tournament national champs. pic.twitter.com/vLbCefipsq

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 4, 2024

Family. @QuincyPratt9 and @JettPratt9 celebrate the win with the trophy. We have a feeling we’ll see them both again. pic.twitter.com/Jjk4U2K0dv

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 4, 2024

This umpiring crew setting the tone for what should be a real good, real competitive game between FSS Mid-South and @LB21baseball for the 2027 title. Here’s a little behind the scenes on what the full plate meeting looks like. pic.twitter.com/jO9SK4XWEY

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 4, 2024

Another familiar face here. @dunnkaleb12 walks it off via run rule with this single to left for @BPAtravelball pic.twitter.com/0OJQAG65Cy

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 3, 2024

It’s getting a little physical here. @tromblybaseball’s 2028 team trying to fight their way back into this one, plating two on a dropped third strike with a late play at the plate to cut it to 7-2. pic.twitter.com/jnZbv6w9Li

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 3, 2024

Another big moment for @jax_van2 in the @Sandlot_Tulsa game, this time driving in another run with an RBI double. pic.twitter.com/7gaulCt0e6

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 2, 2024

Quick thread from the second day of our 2027/2028 grad class National Tournament: pic.twitter.com/nxhmmafnLn

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 3, 2024

It doesn’t seem @ethan_scheel is interested in letting Trombly get back into this one. He hoses a runner for FSS Mid-South. pic.twitter.com/lgpBPhzONE

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 3, 2024

We’re starting to notice some trends here. Another big hit for @tromblybaseball’s Camron Johnson, his second of the day. pic.twitter.com/lpCaXLDU4A

— New Balance 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 (@ftrstarsseries) August 2, 2024

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Glad we’re on the same page.

So, when the Portland Sea Dogs came to town, a team that features three consensus Top 100 prospects in the game — and that’s three of the first 52 in FSS Plus analyst Joe Doyle’s preseason rankings — we sure weren’t going to miss it. Between Matthew Lugo, Nick Yorke, Eddinson Paulino, an injured Blaze Jordan and others, there’s plenty more to watch than just the names you know…but we focused on those top three Boston prospects when the Sea Dogs came to Bridgewater, NJ to face the Somerset Patriots in the Double-A version of the Boston-Bronx rivalry

Marcelo Mayer, SS — Boston Red Sox (FSS Plus No. 1 Prospect)

Mayer went No. 4 overall in 2021 behind only Henry Davis, Jack Leiter and Jackson Jobe. Then a prep shortstop, the now six-foot-three, 188-pounder has hit everywhere he’s been in his steady climb up Boston’s system, now including Portland after struggling there last season, likely due to a shoulder injury he tried to play through.

The tools are there besides perhaps running — he typically grades out to be below average on the basepaths — and he’s shown that he can handle shortstop for now, although there seems to be an increasing belief among evaluators that he’ll eventually find himself at third. The bat will likely be what gets him to the big leagues and keeps him there, as he’s shown a propensity to not only hit for average, but also for power, particularly to the pull side gap as a lefty bat. The 21-year-old has been a doubles machine throughout his career, but particularly this season, where he’s already got 16 of them in his first 159 Double-A plate appearances.

It isn’t if, but when for Mayer…seeing a promotion to Triple-A around the All-Star break certainly wouldn’t be shocking, if not earlier. After that? An MLB ETA of 2025 would seem to be in play.

Roman Anthony, OF — Boston Red Sox (No. 2)

In some circles, Anthony is considered the slightly better prospect over Mayer, although most have Anthony as Boston’s second-best. Still just 20 years old, the six-foot-two, 200-pounder was a steal at No. 79 in the 2022 MLB Draft, and there’s a little bit of everything in his profile.

There’s a ton to like here; consistent hard contact, the ability to potentially stay in center field, and some power that’s been plus in the past. It hasn’t been a big year from a production standpoint just yet; .241 with just three homers in his first 133 at-bats, but remember he’s very young for the level. The Red Sox will almost surely keep him in Portland for the majority of the year, if not all of it, as he gains valuable experience against some players further along in their development process.

Kyle Teel, C — Boston Red Sox (No. 3)

Taken at No. 14 overall just last year, Teel is already in Double-A. A well-rounded and polished college catcher out of Virginia, the Ridgewood, NJ native put up some monster numbers at the NCAA levels and actually got to Portland at the tail end of last season.

Has the athleticism and the arm to keep him behind the dish, and enough bat to where he’ll be in the lineup one way or the other should he run into some issues with having to share the catching position at the big league level. Still only 22 years old, the six-foot, 190-pound backstop is likely on track to see Fenway at some point next season as well.

The post Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony headline loaded Double-A Red Sox team appeared first on Future Stars Series.

Soccer and hockey were the popular sports there at the time — and still are, of course — but they liked something different.

Baseball.

“It was first day of Grade 1, there was, they called it a tryout, but it was whoever wanted to play could play,” Macko told FSS Plus in a recent sit-down interview.

“It was just hitting ball pit balls into a net, and playing catch with these weird big old gloves on our hands and we just had no idea what was going on. But, it was a lot of fun. It was really different, so it was intriguing for us, because it was always soccer or hockey. Outside of school and playing around, we thought baseball would be fun.”

It’s turned into a career ever since.

Quite a good one for the New Balance Baseball Future Stars Series alum, too.

Now a 23-year-old lefty starter in the Toronto Blue Jays system, where he’s finding success in his first foray into the Double-A level with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, Macko has taken a rather unique path to get there, one that started back in his home country, and eventually followed him when he and his family moved to Ireland. Macko’s brother had moved there first, and had nothing but good things to say about it there, ultimately convincing the rest of the family to move there as well as they awaited the results of a visa application to move to Canada.

“The coaches we had in Slovakia were great, but it was more so just to have fun and throw strikes,” Macko recalls.

“I started learning more when we moved to Ireland, and it wasn’t necessarily to just throw harder, but I just wanted to emulate who the best pitchers were at that time. I wanted to look like him, I wanted to feel like him, and I wanted to have that mindset that I was him when I was pitching. So, it was to be more like somebody else. I never really thought of it as learning about mechanics, but simultaneously I did as it went on. There was more and more stuff on YouTube about how to pitch and different mechanical checkpoints or whatever you want to call them, so then I started to learn more in depth about that.”

But, who did he watch? And how did he watch?

“Justin Verlander and David Price, later on,” Macko says. “I was watching the righties. I was playing, I think it was MLB 2K13, and David Price was on the cover, and I was pitching with him and the game, and he was pretty good. I liked pitching with him, so I wanted to have a look at what he’s got.”

Macko famously helped teach himself how to pitch by watching YouTube, and still studies some of the game’s top arms today, pointing out names such as Tyler Glasnow and Jacob deGrom while saying he actually is able to absorb information better while watching righties despite being a southpaw himself. But, to this point in his childhood, he’d never been able to see a game in person or even see one on television until the family ultimately did make the move to Canada, when the restaurant he was at with his family just so happened to have a Blue Jays game on.

Shortly thereafter, he’d truly start his own path to try to get there himself one day, going to the Vauxhall Academy of Baseball in Vauxhall, Alberta, a remote spot in Western Canada with just over 1,000 people living in the town.

“The coach that got me there, he was the first coach that I’d ever met in Canada,” Macko recalls.

“It was a winter camp in Edmonton, and I went there. It was the Spruce Grove White Sox players that were there, and Kevin Inch was the coach, and I thought about maybe trying out for house league or A ball, the lower levels. He was the first one that kind of opened up my eyes and asked if I’d be interested in trying for Triple-A next year. I thought that was crazy, but I was very grateful. I had a really good relationship with him, and he helped me out with baseball a lot. He had connections with Coach Mac (Les McTavish) and that was through his brother, because his brother played in Vauxhall, Steven Inch, and he ended up getting drafted by the Phillies…Kevin got me in touch with Les, and then I went out to try out up there, and I thought it was such a cool opportunity. Just living in dorms and learning how to take care of myself was really intriguing to me, I thought it helped me grow up. That was the best decision I’ve made as far as where to go.”

Macko credits McTavish, who has experience at numerous Future Stars Series events, for helping to guide him during that time, saying that he was instrumental in keeping him focused and guiding a work ethic that had him wanting to do everything all the time.

It was also through his time at Vauxhall that he started to get on the radar in the United States, including with the Future Stars Series, where he pitched for the World Team at International Week in 2018, held that year at Camelback Ranch in Phoenix, Arizona.

“Playing baseball in Canada, it’s great competition, but getting to go down into the US and test myself – like playing travel ball in Georgia or going to those Future Stars Series events or any of those competitions – you get a little glimpse of success, and it almost feels like it’s impossible to do well once you get there,” Macko said. “Once you start going around, you see they’re still players made of flesh and bone, and if you can get a little bit of success there, it gives you a little more confidence that maybe I can do this.”

One year later, with the No. 216 overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft, the Seattle Mariners took Macko with their seventh-round selection.

“I was super nervous about two months before the Draft, because I had a feeling I was going to go,” he said. “I wasn’t throwing super hard, but a couple people told me that if they want more velo, you’re going to go a little bit later, but if they think you can get that velo, you might go sooner. I didn’t really know where I would fall in that. I was told I would go anywhere from fourth to sixth round, but where I went I think was a good spot and where I should have gone for where I was in my development at that time. It was nerve wracking, and every pick that goes by, you’re asking if this is actually going to happen. Once it did, I was floating the rest of the day. So much weight was lifted off my shoulders, and I was feeling on top of the world. That was a goal that I’d had for a really long time, so it was awesome that it came true.”

Macko enjoyed a brief pro debut later that year, splitting time between the-then rookie ball Arizona League and then-short season A-Ball Northwest League before losing all of 2020 when the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite some injuries, he was advancing at a level-per-year pace in the Mariners organization, and made up for lost time after the 2022 season was over with seven outings in the prestigious Arizona Fall League.

Several days after that, the phone rang. He was getting traded to the Toronto Blue Jays, shipped north along with Erik Swanson in exchange for Teoscar Hernandez.

“I was sleeping, and my girlfriend wakes me up to say you’re getting a call from this random number,” Macko said.

“I was like, ‘Oh, just leave it, it’s spam.’ I didn’t have (Seattle AGM) Andy McKay’s number, I guess, saved. He was calling me, and he sent me a text to call him ASAP. I called him immediately back, and it was a couple days after I got back from the Fall League, and he thanked me for everything I’d done and had some very nice words, that the Blue Jays would be in touch. Sure enough, they were in touch, the news got out and it was smooth sailing from there. I was sad to be leaving the Mariners, I’d made a lot of great relationships there and had a lot of great mentors there that I still reach out to sometimes. As soon as I got to the (Toronto) complex, it was amazing and the people there were very welcoming. The attention to detail here is so great, and I feel very blessed to have been a part of the Mariners, and I feel super blessed to be a part of the Blue Jays.”

Not only was Macko traded to the only organization based in his new home country, he also got to play last year close to home in High-A with the Vancouver Canadians, where he was teammates with another FSS alum and fellow 2018 IW World Team member, Dasan Brown. But being close to family provided another layer of comfort.

“When I was playing in Everett, that was super nice being so close. My girlfriend is from White Rock (BC), so it’s close to Vancouver, and she could come visit me on the weekends and stuff like that, it was amazing,” Macko said.

“But the next year, I’m in Vancouver, 45 minutes away from where we live. I travelled back home every day, and got to see her and the dogs and sleep in my own bed. That’s something I’d never really been able to experience, just getting to connect my off-season life and my relationships I have outside of baseball with baseball during the season. When those two worlds collided, it was an amazing time, and I was so grateful that I was able to do that.”

Now in his second full season in the Blue Jays system and first in Double-A, Macko has shown flashes of the upside that has him at or near the Top Ten in many Toronto farm system rankings; he’s got 32 strikeouts in his first 28 innings this season, and has enjoyed being able to test himself against a better level of competition.

“The experience has been great. I love this team, they have lots of great guys and the camaraderie here is a lot of fun. I feel like for me, if that tone is set early, the rest of everything will figure themselves out. We’re going to be really good this year, I think. In terms of the competition we’re playing, you’re seeing a lot more names that sound familiar to you out here than in High-A, so it’s a lot of fun. I always want to compete against the best and I want to see how I stack up and how they stack up. It’s executing it and being consistent, that’s the goal.”

The post FSS Alum Adam Macko takes the road less traveled to pro ball appeared first on Future Stars Series.

Still just 22 years old, the 2018 International Week star — he went on to go at No. 55 in the following year’s Draft — smashed one over 110 MPH off the bat for an RBI double to put his team ahead early in what was ultimately a blowout loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday.

Since his late-season promotion last year, Paris had returned to Double-A Rocket City to start the 2024 season, where he’d stolen eight bases in nine attempts in his first 23 games.

Dylan Crews, OF — Washington Nationals (AA)

The No. 2 overall pick in last year’s Draft has been a steady performer at Double-A Harrisburg as he continues his acclimation process to pro ball after one of the greatest amateur seasons ever put together. The Washington Nationals farmhand has shown flashes all year of the dominance he displayed at LSU, including recently on May 9, where he smacked his third homer of the year. He’s now reached base in six consecutive games as well.

Zac Veen, OF — Colorado Rockies (AA)

Veen, Crews’ teammate both on the Scorpions at the 2019 national tournaments as well as at that year’s debut of International Week at Fenway Park, isn’t long for Double-A at this rate. The 22-year-old Colorado Rockies prospect got at least one hit in each of the six games the Hartford Yard Goats played in their most recent series in Reading, including a stunning 4-for-5 showing on May 9 that included a solo homer.

Roc Riggio, INF — New York Yankees (A+)

The No. 129 overall pick in last year’s Draft by the Yankees, the 2020 International Week standout is heating up in pro ball with the High-A Hudson Valley Renegades. He just had a five-game hitting streak snapped, and had three-extra base hits during that timeframe, including a homer in Aberdeen on May 8.

Tre Phelps, INF/OF — University of Georgia

On the college side, Phelps earned SEC Player of the Week honors in his true freshman season with the University of Georgia, an exceptionally impressive feat given the quality of play in that conference. According to the Bulldogs site, Phelps pulled it off by having “tallied an SEC best 19 total bases, four home runs, nine RBI and eight runs scored in helping the Bulldogs sweep No. 14 South Carolina in Columbia last week. Phelps posted a .1.357 slugging percentage and batted .429 (6-for-14) against the Gamecocks. He smashed a three-run home run in his first at bat of the series to help set the tone as the Bulldogs tallied 39 runs in the sweep and extended their winning streak to eight games. For the year, Phelps is batting .385 with nine home runs and 32 RBI along with a .362 average in SEC action.”

Kyle DeBarge, INF — University of Louisiana-Lafayette

DeBarge continues to put together a huge junior year, and perhaps put the exclamation point on that with a big series at Georgia Southern, going 7-for-13 with seven runs scored and two solo homers. He’s now hitting .359 on the year and has 16 bombs on the season.

Zion Rose, C — Louisville

Zion Rose. Still really good. The freshman catcher strung together four consecutive two-hit games, dating from May 4-May 11. That includes three doubles, with a two-double performance in what was ultimately a loss to Vanderbilt on May 7 included.

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The main attraction, however, was to be Junior Caminero, who is No. 1 on FSS Plus analyst Joe Doyle’s Top 30 Tampa Bay Rays prospects rankings, and No. 2 overall in his preseason Top 100 MLB prospects list, one that has Baz at No. 77 and another Bulls standout, recently sent down Curtis Mead, at No. 79.

Caminero, however, wasn’t in the starting lineup…but, we were in luck. Another rehabber, Brandon Lowe, was pulled after just one inning and one at-bat due to what the team called precautionary reasons — likely due to some scattered light showers that hit the area shortly after first pitch, but did not delay the game in any way — so we got to see one of the top prospects in the game after all.

So, what did we see? Who else stood out?

Junior Caminero, INF — FSS Plus Tampa Bay Rays No. 1 Prospect

Caminero rocketed through the Rays system last year, starting in High-A Bowling Green and getting all the way to the big leagues at just 20 years old, skipping Triple-A entirely at the time. He hit .235 with a homer and seven RBI in 36 plate appearances, and also made his MLB Postseason debut, getting into both games of the team’s Wild Card Series loss to the eventual champion, Texas Rangers.

Listed at six-foot-one and 157 pounds, he seems significantly more bulked up than what those numbers would allow, and also seems to be suffering from the affects of an early season quad injury that knocked him out for two weeks. He wasn’t moving as well as he had in the past on the basepaths, and also wasn’t able to show all of his range at third base…he got through several routine defensive chances just fine, but threw a ball away on his first chance, seemingly hesitating a bit on trying to finish what would have been a 5-3 DP ball.

Caminero is lauded for his bat speed, and it showed on Friday; a somewhat routine grounder back up the middle sailed back up the box at a still-impressive 98 miles per hour, and he showed an approach at the plate indicative of someone looking to do damage with every pitch he sees. A consensus top five prospect in the game, and at worst listed at two or three for most, he’ll likely continue to develop in the minors for the majority of this season.

Curtis Mead, INF — Tampa Bay Rays No. 6

Mead is another example of the Rays development process gone right; the Rays made a deal with the Philadelphia Phillies for him after the 2019 season, and the track had been upward ever since. He hit the Arizona Fall League in 2021, was named to the Futures Game in 2022, and the Australian made his much-anticipated big league debut the following year in an early-August call-up.

A versatile infielder who can play all four positions — yes, he played a little shortstop in the bigs last year — the 23-year-old made his first MLB Opening Day roster this year, but struggled at the plate, hitting .218 in 94 PA’s before getting sent down to Durham the second week of May. As seen below, the six-foot, 171-pounder smashed a 104.1 MPH off the bat hard single to center field in his only hit of the night, although it’s also been a sluggish start with the Bulls as well as he continues to try to find his game.

Shane Baz, RHP — Tampa Bay Rays No. 5

Once one of the brightest pitching prospects in all of baseball, Baz saw the end of his 2022 season and all of last year taken from him after undergoing Tommy John surgery. Now 24, the power righty is still working his way back slowly to get back to the big leagues, and he still seems to be early in that process if Friday is any indication.

Baz faced 11 Sounds batters and walked five on Friday, using mostly a four-seamer that sat between 93-96 and touched 98 as well as a high 80’s slider. He needed 59 pitches to get through 1 2/3 innings, and just 29 were strikes. While results in a rehab appearance largely don’t matter, he’ll need to continue to improve his command as he works to keep building up his pitch count for that much-anticipated MLB return.

Ruben Cardenas, OF/INF — Tampa Bay Rays N/A

At 26 years old and still without any big league service time, Cardenas has largely been ignored in a very impressive farm system from top to bottom. But, the career .272 hitter in the minors impressed on Friday with a 392 foot homer to left field that left the bat at 101.3 MPH and seemed like it was just a somewhat effortless flick of the bat against a very strong starter in Rodriguez. In another org., perhaps Cardenas would have already received an opportunity for his big league debut. With the Rays, he remains something of a depth piece who’s on the precipice of that first chance.

Justin Sterner, RHP — Tampa Bay Rays N/A

It’s cutters, sweepers, and four-seamers for Sterner, who has never been on the Top 30 radar. But, the one-time undrafted free agent out of BYU was touching 95 in a very effective relief outing of Baz, and is pitching to a strong 0.934 WHIP this season while striking out 25 batters in 20 1/3 innings. Historically, his numbers at 3A haven’t been fantastic, including over a large, full-season sample size just last year, but the 27-year-old, who is also still looking for his MLB debut, could pitch his way into consideration for that if he can sustain this early start.

The post Caminero, Mead, rehabbing Baz making noise for Triple-A Rays appeared first on Future Stars Series.

Jeferson Quero, who is currently No. 3 in FSS Plus analyst Joe Doyle’s Top 30 Milwaukee Brewers prospects list, is out with a shoulder injury, and Tyler Black (No. 4) didn’t even get through his first AB on Friday before fouling a ball off his leg and leaving the game after just one half inning.

That does not, however, mean there wasn’t anything left to see, particularly with some strong arms saving the day on the visiting side.

Carlos Rodriguez, RHP, Milwaukee Brewers FSS Plus Top Prospect No. 11

Facing rehabbing big leaguer Shane Baz, it was Rodriguez who was inarguably the more impressive of the two on Friday. The Nicaraguan-born righty who was taken in the sixth round of the 2021 MLB Draft out of Florida SW State College was far better than his numbers entering the night would have indicated; he picked up the win in holding a strong Durham lineup to just one run over six innings, allowing just one walk and four hits while striking out six.

Four-seamers, cutters, sinkers, changeups, sliders…you name it, Rodriguez not only had it in his arsenal on Friday night, but was commanding it well. He was sitting between 92-94 miles per hour on the radar gun with the 4SFB and touching 95 and truly made just one mistake on the evening in allowing a long home run off the bat of Ruben Cardenas. Just out of Doyle’s Top 10 in the org. at No. 11, if the six-foot, 206-pounder can build off of this start to get his season turned around, he may be on track to reach the big leagues for the first time by the end of the year.

Abner Uribe, RHP — Milwaukee Brewers N/A

Uribe is a known commodity who made very recent headlines for his role in a benches-clearing incident in the big leagues that earned him a six-game suspension he’ll need to serve on his next recall. The 23-year-old righty made his big league debut last year, and dazzled for the majority of the time, pitching to just a 1.76 ERA over his first 30 2/3 MLB innings, whiffing 39 along the way. How does he do it?

Abner Uribe throws hard. Very, very hard. He hit 99.6 MPH twice on Friday and was solely a sinker-slider guy over the course of this outing, keeping hitters off-balance with a breaker that routinely crossed at 85-86. While he struggle to find the same success of last season in the bigs this year, there’s little doubt that as a true power arm, he’ll be back in “The Show” sooner rather than later.  He’s famously touched 103 MPH in the past in the big leagues, recording the fastest pitch in Brewers franchise history.

Owen Miller, INF — Milwaukee Brewers N/A

At 27 years old and with exactly 1,000 big-league plate appearances, Owen Miller’s prospect days are long behind him. A third-rounder out of Illinois State back in 2018, Miller is on his third org. and has extensive MLB service time with the latter two; he played in a career-high 130 major-league games for the Cleveland Guardians in 2022 and got into 90 more with Milwaukee last year, not to mention seven more this season as well.

Miller is putting up numbers he hasn’t since his debut season in pro ball thus far for the Sounds, hitting .342 in 21 Triple-A games while drawing ten walks in just 91 PA’s. Hoping to shed a 4A label, he’s currently an interesting veteran asset for the Brewers, but could also be a target for a club looking for a big-league ready bench option via small trade.

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Soon, anyway. For now, he continues to ply his trade at the college level at The University of Tennessee, but with the MLB Draft soon approaching, a wise big league team is set to get an advanced bat with some of the best power in the class. It’s not just power, though. The junior first baseman has a five-game hitting streak with eight knocks in his last 20 AB’s, which yes, includes a homer in a win over Florida on Saturday.

Burke first showed what he can do with the New Balance Baseball Future Stars Series at the NorCal World Series back in 2018, and then a pro combine the following year before a breakout showing at the National Combine at Lake Charles in 2020.

Tre Phelps, INF — Georgia

True freshman, true talent. Phelps has put together an incredible first year in college ball, not far removed from a similar run at the FSS signature events, including the 2022 Main Event and Caribbean Classic. In his last five games with the Bulldogs, he’s 8-for-17 with two homers and nine RBI, and is hitting a stunning .378 on the season.

Colby Shelton, OF — Florida

Shelton has put together a big sophomore campaign for the Gators alongside fellow FSS alum Luke McNeillie, who has emerged as one of the top freshman arms in the country. Shelton has already gone deep 16 times this year, and did it again on Friday against Burke’s Vols in a big win.

Ian Petrutz, OF — Alabama

While Petrutz would have been lost in the shuffle for some given most eyes were on teammate Anthony Solometo during his appearance at the national tournaments, Petrutz earned his flowers with the Future Stars Series, and we’ve been keeping a close eye on him ever since. A junior transfer from Maryland, the six-foot, 210-pound lefty bat ranks 15th in the SEC with a .427 OBP and is fresh off a three-hit showing against Mississippi State, which gives him at least one knock in his last six contests.

Zion Rose, C — Louisville

Another true freshman who showed up to a big school ready to play, Rose has hits in ten of his last 12 games, including a whopping six multi-hit games over that span. He’s also got ten RBI over that stretch, and is hitting .382 in a strong first NCAA campaign.

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