Josue De Paula is a most valuable player…
The 20-year-old Dominican American baseball player, the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ top prospect, blasted a three-run home run in the MLB Futures Game to lead the National League to a 4-2 win over the American League at Truist Park, winning the Larry Doby Award as the exhibition’s MVP.
After flying out in his first at-bat, De Paula, the NL‘s starting left fielder, saw two sliders from 6-foot-10 left-hander Noah Schultz, the Chicago White Sox‘s top prospect.
De Paula took the first pitch for a ball and the second for a strike. Schultz tried sneaking another one by De Paula and the left-handed slugger pounced, swatting the hanging slider 416 feet over the right-field wall.
“I just wanted to go up there and see ball, hit ball,” De Paula said, “knowing that we didn’t have any information on these pitchers.”
De Paula was born and raised in New York City, but his family moved to the Dominican Republic in 2021 so he could pursue a professional baseball career after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down his high school baseball season.
He signed with the Dodgers for $397,500 in January 2022 during what would’ve been his junior year of high school.
After spending that summer in the Dominican Summer League, De Paula returned to the United States to play for Low-A Rancho Cucamonga in 2023. This season, he’s batting .265 with 10 home runs and an .835 OPS in 78 games for High-A Great Lakes.
He has spent his offseasons training in the Dominican Republic with New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto and Cincinnati Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz.
“It’s a lot on the mental side, not physical, because I feel like all the physical is always going to be there,” De Paula said. “The mental tips and just how to go about their work, how to go about their day, their routine, just how to handle yourself.”
LuJames Groover, a third baseman in the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ organization, delivered the only multihit outing with two infield singles. He scored the NL‘s fourth run of the fourth inning on Chicago Cubs outfield prospect Owen Caissie‘s double.
The AL scored the game’s first two runs on an infield single from White Sox prospect Braden Montgomery in the third inning and Texas Rangers top prospect Sebastian Walcott‘s sacrifice fly in the fourth.
New York Yankees top prospect George Lombard Jr. played all seven innings for the AL, starting at second base before moving to shortstop. He went 1-for-2 with a double, walk, steal and run scored.
Atlanta Braves pitching prospect JR Ritchie started for the NL in his organization’s home ballpark and tossed a scoreless inning with two strikeouts and a walk. New York Mets prospect Jonah Tong, whose 125 strikeouts led the minors entering the weekend, followed Ritchie and tossed another scoreless inning with a fastball that touched 97 mph. He struck out Seattle Mariners catching prospect Harry Ford on a curveball.
“I honestly felt more comfortable than I thought I was going to,” said Tong, who has a 1.83 ERA in 15 starts for Double-A Binghamton this season. “Just taking a really deep breath and realizing that I’ve been here. The stage was a little bit bigger, but it was a lot of fun.”
