It was a big day on the farm for several of Cincinnati’s prospects. The biggest day may have belonged to Carlos Jorge down in Daytona. A second baseman in all 65 games he’s played in the field in 2023, Jorge started the game for the Tortugas on Friday night in center. It was the first time he’s played in the outfield in his 3-year minor league career.
Perhaps being at a new position got his blood flowing in a good way because he started out the game with a triple in the 1st inning. He followed it up with a home run two innings later, then doubled two innings after that. Needing a single, he came to the plate in the 8th inning and got the job done, finishing the day 4-4 and completing the cycle. He is the first Tortuga to ever accomplish the feat – Daytona became the Tortugas in 2015.
1st inning 3B, 3rd inning HR, 5th inning 2B, 8th inning 1B
All four of Carlos Jorge's hits in the first cycle in Tortugas history tonight!@RedsOnTheRise @MiLB pic.twitter.com/wtrC2jrjRN
— Daytona Tortugas (@daytonatortugas) July 22, 2023
Connor Phillips strikes out 11
On just about any other night an 11-strikeout, 7-inning performance with no runs would lead the way for top performance on the farm. That probably isn’t the case here, but Connor Phillips can get a runners up trophy on this one.
The night didn’t start out in the best manner for Phillips. He walked two batters in the 1st inning before he picked up a strikeout to end the inning. But from that point forward he didn’t walk anyone and he struck out 10 more batters along the way while giving up just three hits.
In his first start for Louisville, Connor Phillips couldn’t get out of the 2nd inning. He allowed a hit, walked five batters, and he struck out just one of the 11hitters that he faced. Since then he’s been much better. He’s struck out 22 of the 63 batters he’s face and walked just seven of them in his 16.0 innings while allowing three runs (1.69 ERA) over three starts in July. If he can continue to pitch like that, it may not be all that long before he finds himself in Cincinnati.
The Reds push the draft to the limits
Cincinnati made two more signings of 2023 MLB draft picks on Friday. The biggest one was when they signed 4th round pick Cole Schoenwetter for $1,900,000. But the club also signed 14th round pick Kyle Henley for $395,000.
Those two signings mean that Cincinnati has signed their first 17 picks, leaving just their selections from rounds 17-20 unsigned. It also means that the club has next to no “additional” money to spend from their draft pool. Those two bonuses, if I’ve done the math correctly, leave the Reds $460 under the 5% overage number that would push them from simply paying a tax on their overspending to leading to them having to give up 2024’s 1st round draft pick.
Cincinnati can still spend up to $150,000 to sign any of their four draft picks (each can get up to that amount). But any dollar spent on any player over that $150,000 would count towards the bonus pool allotment, which only has $460 remaining in it (again, assuming that I did the math correctly).