The Arizona Fall League and the Futures Game

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 10 min read

The Arizona Fall League and the All-Star Futures Game are baseball's two main prospect showcases. Learn who plays in each, how to read the statistics they produce and what scouts actually take from them.

Every summer the best young players in the minor leagues play one game together during All-Star week, and every fall a few hundred of them go to Arizona for about six weeks of games against each other. The first event is the Futures Game and the second is the Arizona Fall League. Both are showcases, both are run with the cooperation of Major League Baseball and its clubs, and both produce statistics that are easy to over-read.

This article explains what each event is, how players are chosen, what a scout or a fan can learn from them and what they cannot tell you. Details of rosters and formats change from year to year, so check MLB's official site for the current arrangements. Everything here is general background rather than a report on any one season.

What the Arizona Fall League is

The Arizona Fall League, usually abbreviated AFL, began in 1992 as a developmental league for prospects. It plays in the Phoenix area in October and November, after the minor-league season ends, in spring-training ballparks whose regular tenants have gone home. Its schedule runs for roughly six weeks and ends with a championship game. It is a proper league, with standings, stats and an all-star game, but it is not part of the ordinary minor-league ladder. It is operated for the major-league clubs, and the players on its rosters are their prospects, lent for the season.

The league is built around six teams, and each team is staffed by players from several major-league organizations rather than one. The usual count is five organizations per AFL team, which makes sense since there are 30 major-league clubs. The six teams are listed below.

The AFL was not played in 2020 because of the pandemic and returned the next year. If you want to see what a typical week looks like now, the league publishes its schedule and rosters on MLB's website.

Who goes, and why

Clubs choose who to send, and the choices are a message. Each major-league organization sends a handful of players, typically about half a dozen, drawn mostly from Double-A and Triple-A with some from lower levels. The reasons fall into a few groups.

• Lost time. A player who missed part of the summer with an injury needs at-bats or innings. A pitcher who threw few innings can build up his workload in the fall under a club's supervision.
• Test against better competition. A hitter who has dominated Double-A may be sent to see how he handles pitchers who are all prospects.
• A new position or role. Clubs sometimes use the fall to try an infielder in the outfield, a starter in relief or a catcher at first base, because the games do not count in anyone's standings.
• Evaluation. The league gives scouts and front-office staff from every club a chance to see a lot of prospects in one place, in a short period of time.

The most important thing to know is that an AFL assignment is not a prize. Some of the players sent are the best prospects in the minors, and some are sent because they need work. Bryce Harper, for example, played in the AFL in 2010, the fall after the Nationals drafted him first overall. Many others who played there never became regulars. The assignment says something about how the club views the player's immediate needs, and much less about how good he will be.

How to read an AFL stat line

The league plays a short schedule, so a hitter may have fewer than 100 at-bats and a pitcher may throw fewer than 25 innings. Samples that small are dominated by luck, and a worked example makes the point. A hitter whose true skill is a .300 average has a standard deviation of about 0.046 across 100 at-bats, which is the square root of 0.3 times 0.7 divided by 100. Two standard deviations is .092, so a .300 hitter will often finish an AFL stint anywhere from about .210 to about .390 without anything changing about his ability.

Two more things distort the numbers. The league plays in a dry desert climate, and it is widely regarded as a hitter-friendly environment, so offense is higher than in the regular minor-league season. And the pitching is uneven: some pitchers are polished prospects, while others are relievers working on a single pitch. A .350 average in the AFL does not mean a .350 hitter, and a poor line does not mean a failed prospect. Look instead at how a player does against the quality of competition, how his swing decisions look and what scouts report.

Reading a pitcher's fall line

Pitching statistics are even less stable than hitting ones in a sample this small. A reliever who throws 20 innings in the AFL and allows 5 earned runs has an earned run average of 2.25, which is the number of earned runs times 9, divided by innings. If he then has one bad outing in which he gets three outs and is charged with 5 earned runs, his totals become 10 earned runs in 21 innings, an ERA of 4.29. A single appearance doubled his ERA. That is why scouts looking at an AFL pitcher pay attention to strikeouts, walks and the quality of the pitches instead of the ERA on the scoreboard.

Walks and strikeouts per batter faced are better guides than run prevention, but they too are noisy at this scale. A pitcher who faces 90 batters and strikes out 27 of them has a 30 percent strikeout rate, and the standard deviation of that rate is roughly 4.8 points, so it could just as easily be 25 or 35 percent. Treat the AFL as a way of seeing the pitches, the delivery and the pitcher's response to a bad inning, none of which show up cleanly in a stat line. The innings limits clubs place on young pitchers also mean that some of the best arms in the league throw only an inning at a time.

A practical way to follow a prospect

Fans who want to follow prospects carefully can use the AFL and the Futures Game as two data points inside a larger routine. Start with the player's full-season line at the level where he played, and compare it with the league average at that level, since a Double-A hitter with an above-average line against older pitchers is a stronger signal than a high-minors hitter with the same line against weaker ones. Then check his age relative to the league, because a 21-year-old in Double-A is a different case from a 25-year-old at the same level.

After that, look at the strikeout and walk rates, which stabilize faster than batting average. A hitter with a strikeout rate that is climbing as he moves up is a warning sign, and a pitcher whose walks rise as he advances is another. The fall stats come last, as a check on the rest: if they agree, the case is stronger, and if they conflict, the smaller sample should lose. The same logic applies to the Futures Game, where a single good game should change a fan's interest in a prospect, not the assessment of his skill.

What scouts are looking for

Scouts watch prospects with a framework, and the AFL gives them a place to apply it. The standard language is the 20-to-80 scale, on which 50 is major-league average and each 10 points is a step up or down. A hitter might be given separate grades for hitting for average, hitting for power, running, arm and fielding, plus a grade for the tool he is expected to have when he arrives in the majors rather than the one he has now.

The scale is subjective, and different scouts will grade the same player a few points apart. Its use in the AFL is as a structured note-taking system rather than a score: a scout will write down, for example, that a pitcher's fastball plays above average, that his slider is a 55 and that his control needs work. Anyone reading a prospect report should treat the numbers as opinions, not measurements.

What the Futures Game is

The Futures Game is a single exhibition, held during All-Star week at the same ballpark that hosts the All-Star Game. It began in 1999, at the All-Star festival in Boston. For most of its history the game pitted a team of U.S. prospects against a team of prospects from the rest of the world. In recent years the format has changed more than once, including the use of American League and National League rosters, so check the current format before assuming.

Rosters are chosen by MLB with input from clubs, drawing on the recognized prospect rankings. The players come from across the minor leagues, and a large share are from outside the United States, since the signing of young players in Latin America and elsewhere has produced many prospects who rank at the top of those lists. For how that market works, see international amateur signings. The managers and coaches are typically former major leaguers, and pitchers usually work an inning or so each.

What the Futures Game can and cannot tell you

The Futures Game is for the fans and the prospects, and for the baseball world's first look at some of them. It is less of a scouting event than the AFL. Pitchers work an inning or so, hitters may get two or three plate appearances, and the situation is an exhibition. A strikeout in that game tells you very little, and a home run tells you little more.

What it does give is exposure. A fan who follows the minors can see the best young players on one field. A front office can see how a prospect behaves on a national stage. And the players themselves get a first taste of an All-Star environment. The better use of the game is as an introduction: find the names that stand out, then follow them over the next few seasons through the real statistics at the minor-league pages.

AFL and Futures Game side by side

The two events are often grouped, but they serve different purposes.

It follows that the AFL carries more information per player, though still a thin sample, and the Futures Game carries almost none. Neither should be used as the basis for deciding that a player will succeed. For why even highly ranked prospects fall short so often, read why prospects bust.

Where prospects come from and where they go

A prospect's path is long. Most players begin in rookie ball or the lowest full-season levels, and move up through high Class A, Double-A and Triple-A, if they move at all. The AFL sits at the Double-A and Triple-A end of that range. A player who is sent there is usually one or two steps from the majors, and the next step is the call-up. The call-up process explains how a player is added to a major-league roster, and the two Triple-A leagues are described in the Pacific Coast League and the International League. Players who fall outside the system may also land in independent baseball leagues.

Common questions

Are AFL games counted in a player's official minor-league statistics? The AFL keeps its own statistics, and they are not added to a regular-season line. Check MLB's site for how any specific player's record is handled.

Do all prospects play in the AFL? No. Clubs choose a small number each, and some of the top prospects never go because they do not need the work.

Is the Futures Game a good way to judge a prospect? It is a good way to see one. A single game with a handful of plate appearances is too small a sample to judge.

Why Arizona? The league plays in the Phoenix area, in ballparks that major-league clubs use for spring training, which are empty in the fall.

Can I attend a game? Yes, the league is open to the public. Check the league's schedule on MLB's website for dates and admission details.

Where to go next

Browse the minor-league section for current standings and players, and read the draft and prospects topic page for coverage of the prospects who make these rosters. The minor-league topic page collects news from the leagues in between, and MLB's own site at https://www.mlb.com/ lists the current rosters for both events.