Jesse Biddle, Maikel Franco are Phillies of the Hopefully Not Terrifying Future

The MLB Futures game is the game in which we are transported years into the future.  Of the MLB.

Ever since the invention of time travel, it has been the sole usage of the new technology.  Seems like a waste.  Plus, we have all those paradoxes to worry about.  But also, we can see what baseball is going to be like in the future before it happens.

I’m being told that that’s not actually what that is, and I need to start knowing what things are before writing about them.

No matter.

July 8, 2012; Kansas City, MO, USA; A general view as the USA and World teams line up for the national anthems before the 2012 All Star Futures Game at Kauffman Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

The “Futures” in “MLB Futures Game” refers to the time period in which the players in the game will be able to take the place of our rotting, smelly core.  Young prospects hit the big time for one game only to prove why they deserve to appear higher in the ranks that people like to put them in before they premiere.

Jesse Biddle and Maikel Franco will be the Phillies’ representatives, and will undoubtedly make us proud in front of everybody or we will be very upset and not sure what to focus on all the time if the Phillies in the present and future are disappointing.  The past?  Not a lot of success back there, either.  My god.  Are we just an awful baseball team?

No, stop that.  Biddle and Franco are two young prospects in a starved system who have put in the work to emerge as universally recognized talents.  Biddle has started 14 games for Reading, giving up 53 hits in 79.1 innings.  He’s thrown two complete games and maintains a 3.29 ERA.

Franco, Biddle’s third baseman, was hitting a hair under .300 for Lakewood before being promoted to Reading, where he has played in five games with 22 plate appearances, and has pounded out a .524 average with a 1.498 OPS.  They’re making him play in a giant plastic bubble just so everybody doesn’t get radiation sickness.

So this will all go very well.  There’s no reason to think it won’t.