The Cincinnati Reds selected Shedric Long in the 12th round of the 2013 draft out of Jacksonville, Alabama as a 17-year-old. He was the youngest player in the organization that played stateside in 2013 where he spent his entire season with the Arizona League Reds.
June was a rough stretch for Long who walked in his first game and scored a run, but went 0-3. He would go 0-7 over the next two games. In the final game of June he would go 0-2 with 2 walks to finish June 0-12 with a run and 3 walks.
July began with two more hitless games with a walk and an RBI. After starting his career 0-19 Long caught fire to finish out the month. On the 13th the catcher logged his first career hit in a 1-3 effort with 2 runs and he was hit by a pitch. On the 18th he went 1-3 with a walk. The next day he went 1-4 with an RBI. Two days later against the Mariners he went 2-5 with a run. Another two days later in his next game he had twomore hits. That was followed up with a 1-3 game that included a walk. On the last day of the month Long went 1-2 with a double and a walk to finish the month riding a 7-game hitting streak and posted a line of .290/.389/.323 with 4 walks and 9 strikeouts in 36 plate appearances.
August began with extending his hitting streak to 8 games with a single in 4 at bats on the 2nd against the Padres. The next day the hitting streak went to 9 games with a hit in two at bats, also against the Padres. On the 5th the streak went to 10 games against the Rangers with two hits in three at bats with an RBI. The streak came to an end on the 7th with a pinch hitting appearance. The following day Long went 2-5 with a walk and 2 RBI. On the 25th against the Cubs Long went 1-3 with his first home run in a 1-3 effort with 3 RBI. That was his final game of the year as he finished up August posting a line of .314/.333/.429 with a walk and 4 RBI in 37 plate appearances.
Season Stats
| PA | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | K | AVG | OBP | SLG |
| 88 | 9 | 20 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 8 | 1 | 8 | 17 | .256 | .333 | .321 |
Overall Thoughts
After a rough start to his career, Shedric Long hit .339/.391/.424 over the final 18 games of the season to turn his year around with the AZL Reds. He walked 8 times on the season and struck out 17 times in 88 plate appearances. On the defensive side of the ball he threw out 28% of attempted base stealers in his debut. He had a solid debut in sporadic playing time with a good walk rate and a solid strikeout rate.
For more player season review, you can see the entire list here.