Get ready for four-days of top prospect baseball when all teams will showcase top prospect games with the inaugural SPRING BREAKOUT held from March 14-17 at Grapefruit and Cactus league stadiums. The Washington Nationals and New York Mets Spring Breakout game will be played on March 15 in a Friday afternoon showcase game at 3:10 PM EDT that is part of a doubleheader with a regular big league game.
The “Spring Breakout” game, which is a new concept this year, fields rosters of team’s future stars for a showcase in the middle of the Spring Training schedule. Teams are paired against nearby teams in the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues, and the Nats prospects will travel to face the Mets at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie.
“Spring Breakout will provide a new opportunity to showcase the future stars of the game as they continue on their journey to the Major Leagues.”
— MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement
“Our fans will get unique opportunities to meet our best prospects, get autographs, and see the next generation of Major Leaguers up close.”
“We are thrilled that Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball and all of our Clubs are working closer than ever to grow the game and to shine a brighter light on our future All-Stars.”
The Washington Nationals might have inspired this idea when they announced that they were doing an exhibition game on March 26th of their top prospects versus Nats’ MLB players in an exhibition game called “On Deck: Nationals Futures Game”. By the way, tickets are on sale now on this link.
For the “Spring Breakout” games, MLB envisions in-person autograph sessions and other meet-and-greet opportunities with prospects. This is a chance to broaden baseball’s appeal with the stars of tomorrow. Many of the game will be televised on the MLB Network. Since these are minor league games, all of the television logistics have not been worked out yet. But certainly, if you choose a time to travel to Spring Training — that would be a good time to do it.
The Nats lineup and roster could look something like this:
1. Dylan Crews CF
2. Brady House 3B
3. James Wood RF
4. Yohandy Morales 1B
5. Robert Hassell LF
6. Elijah Green DH
7. Trey Lipscomb SS
8. Darren Baker 2B
9. Drew Millas C
Pitchers: DJ Herz/Jackson Rutledge/Mitchell Parker/Travis Sykora/Cole Henry/Jarlin Susana/Andry Lara/Holden Powell and certainly you can add another half dozen pitchers on to this list.
Bench: Daylen Lile, Cristhian Vaquero, Israel Pineda, T.J. White, Armando Cruz
For the Mets, one their Top-5 prospects, Ronny Mauricio, was just lost for a year with a knee injury suffered in winter baseball. The Mets will have the newly acquired Luisangel Acuna plus Drew Gilbert, Jett Williams, and Kevin Parada.
With all of those names as a partial list of participants, you can get excited by the future of the Nationals, and MLB has put together some great matchups like the Orioles and Pirates which could feature Paul Skenes pitching to Jackson Holliday. That will be “must see” television, and that is what MLB wants. If this works out well, expect it to be expanded in 2025.
