The season is officially over for the Arizona League Reds, the Single-A Daytona Tortugas, and the High-A Dayton Dragons. That doesn’t necessarily mean the season is over for all of the players who were on those teams as they could still join Double-A Chattanooga or Triple-A Louisville if someone is needed to step in for them.
For most of the players, though, the next step will be instructional league or fall/winter league baseball. The Dominican Winter League doesn’t begin their season for another five weeks, but tomorrow night they will hold their annual draft for eligible players. In order to be eligible for the draft, a player “must be Dominican or have Dominican origins” and have been on a Single-A roster or higher by August 1st.
Cincinnati has five players that a eligible for this year’s draft: Pitcher Pedro Alfonseca, Infielders Carlos Jorge and Victor Acosta, and outfielders Ariel Almonte and Hector Rodriguez.
Three of those players are Top 25 prospects in the organization. Carlos Jorge, the clubs 9th best prospect, saw action in both Daytona and Dayton this year and hit .282/.374/.464 with 32 stolen bases. Hector Rodriguez came in as the 12th best prospect in the organization and like Jorge, saw time with both Daytona and Dayton and in his 115 games he hit .293/.343/.495 with 18 stolen bases. Victor Acosta came in at the #23 spot on the latest Reds prospect list. He spent all 100 games this season with Daytona and he hit .251/.364/.355 with 12 stolen bases.
Ariel Almonte has been ranked in the Top 25 in the past, but fell off of the list in the last update after having struggles. He spent the full season in Daytona where he played 97 games and hit .203/.298/.299. Pedro Alfonseca used to be an outfielder. He signed with the Reds as a pitcher after he threw in the Pioneer League in 2022. He’s now a 25-year-old who posted a 3.72 ERA while in Arizona, but a 10.54 ERA with Daytona where he walked 21 batters with 15 strikeouts, and hit four others, in 13.2 innings.
The Arizona Fall League gets started in three weeks, with the first games on October 2nd. We do not yet have rosters for the AFL, but they should be coming out any day now. Last year they were released on September 16th. Cincinnati has recently used the league as a spot to get additional playing time for guys who missed part of the season. That doesn’t apply for everyone, but a majority of their selections has been guys who fit that profile.
Pitchers Benschoter, Gozzo, Roa, Timpanelli, INF McLain and Marte and OF Hinds were Reds prospects in the AFL in ’22. Pitchers had very ordinary Summers.
Hoping Reds place a catcher, maybe Nelson, this go around. Maybe pitchers Roxby, Jessee, McElvain. Fun to speculate.
I’d like to see Crawford, Trautwein, Callihan, Dunn, McGarry, Hurtubese, and Roxby.
I’d like to see Heatherly too but I doubt they would with his injury history.
Both Louisville and Chattanooga currently have 10 active position players (11 for Louisville if you count rehabbing Newman). The Lookouts have one true outfielder (Dunn) and catcher as Free has only caught 6 innings this year. Thus I would think we will see some promotions from Dayton today before the games start. Cerda, Hunter, and Thompson maybe? O’Donnell all the way from Daytona would be interesting as well.
Sal Stewart could and should get extra time, and O’Donnell would be interesting as well, but never an issue adding catchers.
Reinforcements up to AA. Arroyo, Ascansio and Hunter as well as Urbaez back down from AAA, with pitching as well.