Nathan Flewelling Wins 2026 Futures Game MVP
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A 19-year-old catcher from a hockey city in Alberta just won the 2026 MLB Futures Game MVP — and what he did to get there is worth your attention.
Nathan Flewelling grew up on skates. He played hockey until he was 14. Home was Red Deer, in central Alberta, where winters run long and hockey is what people talk about.
The ball fields there spend half the year frozen. Despite those odds, Flewelling found a baseball academy at 14 and traded the skates for shin guards.
He is 19 now. The Tampa Bay Rays drafted him in the third round of the 2024 MLB Draft out of St. Joseph High School. But he was not a household name.
Flewelling spent 2025 learning the game at Low-A Charleston — 102 games, patient work, a .408 on-base percentage. Then he jumped to High-A Bowling Green this year.
| G | AVG | SLG | HR | RBI |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 73 | .261 | .496 | 16 | 49 |
Tampa Bay calls him their No. 2 prospect. Still, outside the organization, almost nobody had watched him play.
Flewelling stepped to the plate at Citizens Bank Park in the sixth inning. It was the MLB All-Star Futures Game, July 13, and the American League was trailing. He swung at the first pitch and put it over the right-field wall.
That two-run shot put the American League ahead for good. It went on to win 6-1.
Flewelling took home the Larry Doby Most Valuable Player Award when the game ended. He was the first Rays prospect to win it since pitcher Brent Honeywell in 2017.
MLB Pipeline then moved him to No. 10 on its overall Top 100 prospects list.
The Futures Game is a different stage. The scouts filling those seats write down names. Flewelling gave them one swing to write his down.
What a catcher can learn from this
Flewelling started late, in a town that had every reason to make him a hockey player. But he went to the academy anyway. He put in the reps anyway. He spent two years in the Rays system working without an audience.
The Futures Game is where that kind of work becomes visible. Most prospects arrive there carrying years of quiet effort that nobody else has seen. The winter sessions. The early mornings. The throws into a target when nobody was keeping score.
Then one night, in front of ten thousand people, the work shows up.
That is what happened in the sixth inning. Flewelling was ready for a pitch he had practiced hitting thousands of times in Red Deer. The stage changed. But his preparation didn’t.
You have fields too. Wherever you catch, whatever the conditions — those reps are adding up. Keep going.
Try this at your next practice
- The “nobody’s watching” drill. Set up solo blocking and receiving reps with a machine or a partner — no coach required. Put a timer on for 20 minutes and compete against yourself. The point is to build the habit of working at full effort when there’s no audience. Flewelling built his game in off-season sessions no one will ever write about.
- First-pitch preparation. Hitters know what they want on the first pitch; so do catchers. In your next bullpen, call pitches as if the first pitch of every at-bat is the most important pitch of the game. The Futures Game MVP hit his home run on the first pitch because he was ready before the count started.
- Blocking in heavy gear. Don’t strip down for blocking work. Practice in your full kit — shin guards, chest protector, mask. The reps are harder. That’s the point.
Sources: Nathan Flewelling wins 2026 MLB Futures Game MVP (MLB.com) · Rays prospect Nathan Flewelling named Futures Game MVP (NBC Sports) · What rivals think of Flewelling (FanSided)