Today’s the day that we make it into the top 10 part of the 2024 Cincinnati Reds prospects list. At this point there probably aren’t many surprises because you likely know which of the top end guys are remaining, but maybe the order will be different than you expected.
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These write ups will not feature full scouting reports. Those will be included with the Season Reviews, which will start next week – first working my way through the Top 25 prospects before then branching out into another 25-50 interesting prospects through the remainder of the offseason.
*To be eligible for the list a player must have 2024 Rookie of the Year eligibility (Fewer than 130 at bats in the big leagues, fewer than 50 innings pitched, or less than 45 days on the active MLB roster)*
All ages listed are as of April 1st, 2024
6. Chase Petty | RHP | Age: 20
2023 Team: Dayton Dragons, Chattanooga Lookouts | Acquired: Trade (Twins), 1st round, 2021 Draft | Height: 6′ 1″ | Weight: 190 lbs. | B/T: R/R
What to like: Petty led the organization in groundball rate. He’s coming off of a season with a 1.72 ERA where he walked just 5.5% of the hitters that he faced.
What he needs to improve on: It’s not necessarily something to improve on as much as it is something he has to prove, which is throwing a starters worth of innings. His workload has been controlled quite a bit in both 2022 and 2023, with last season not having him go beyond 4.0 innings in any of his 18 starts after missing the first month of the season.
Video
Stats
7. Ricardo Cabrera | SS | Age: 19
2023 Team: ACL Reds, Daytona Tortugas | Acquired: International FA, 2022 | Height: 5′ 11″ | Weight: 178 lbs. | B/T: R/R
What to like: After being one of the top international signings of 2022, Cabrera has crushed the ball after a first month of struggles as a pro. In 2023 he hit .350/.469/.559 with 21 stolen bases in 39 games as an 18-year-old in the Arizona Complex League.
What he needs to improve on: At his age he needs to improve on just about everything, but it’s the defensive side of things where the numbers give an indication of needed improvements. He posted an .891 fielding percentage in 2023 while splitting time between shortstop and third base, making 19 errors in 41 defensive games.
Video
Stats
8. Carlos Jorge | 2B/CF | Age: 20
2023 Team: Daytona Tortugas, Dayton Dragons | Acquired: International FA, 2021 | Height: 5′ 10″ | Weight: 160 lbs. | B/T: L/R
What to like: At every level he’s spent a majority of the season at, Jorge has been one of the best hitters in the league. He’s also been among the league leaders in stolen bases at each level he’s played at, too.
Where he needs to improve on: Around the midseason point the Reds began to play Jorge in center field a few times a week. An infielder coming up, he’s still quite raw when it comes to all things defense-related in the outfield.
Video
Stats
9. Sal Stewart | 1B/3B | Age: 20
2023 Team: Daytona Tortugas, Dayton Dragons | Acquired: 1st Round, 2022 Draft | Height: 6′ 3″ | Weight: 215 lbs. | B/T: R/R
What to like: Stewart knows what he’s doing at the plate. In his 125 games as a professional across three levels he’s walked 88 times and struck out just 82 times in 546 plate appearances. He’s also hit .276/.396/.418 in that span. During the 2023 season he showed he was able to make adjustments and turned in a big second half of the year.
What he needs to improve on: You’ve got to be really nitpicky here but he didn’t hit for much power at all in 2023 against lefties – slugging .359 with just one home run (he hit 11 against righties).
Video
Stats
10. Alfredo Duno | C | Age: 18
2023 Team: DSL Reds | Acquired: International FA, 2023 | Height: 6′ 2″ | Weight: 210 lbs. | B/T: R/R
What to like: In his professional debut he did everything you could ask of him at the plate. Duno hit for average and power, and he walked nearly as often as he struck out while posting a .303/.451/.493 line as a 17-year-old. He also went 6-for-6 in stolen base attempts.
What he needs to improve on: Everything. He is not even 18-years-old as of the publishing of this list. But one thing we didn’t get to see him do in 2023 was play defense as he was held out from catching during the regular season. With catcher being the most important defensive position on the field, it’s a very important aspect of the game that he hasn’t shown yet as a professional.
Video
(427-foot home run)
Stats
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Thanks. You omitted the stats for Sal Stewart.
Love the short swings of all of the hitters.
Interesting to see Sal Stewart behind Jorge. Is that mainly because of his Defensive liabilities Doug? TIA
Jorge slugged better, has more speed and projects much better defensively. That said, I would think Stewart has much more power potential in the future.
A lot more defensive value and value on the bases. I think that Stewart is going to be the better hitter, but also far more likely to wind up at first base.
or DH
All five of these guys are studs, with a future in the big leagues! It’s amazing to have this much talent in the farm after graduating so many prospects the last couple of year.
I agree, what a top 10!
A lot of tall timber there for sure.
HI. With all of these SS top prospects (including Arroyo), do you think one of these will push ELDC out of SS to 3rd base or to an OF position? Personally, I would leave him at SS until a player blows the doors open at AAA or AA like McLain and/or ELDC did in 2023.
Not anytime soon, no. I think that if EDLC comes out and hits in 2024 that he’ll be locked in at shortstop until he outgrows the position defensively (if he ever does).
I completely agree. This has been a long debate, to move or not to move Elly. Besides being an absolute weapon at short, teams just don’t move their best players off their natural and time tested best positions. Elly’s such a great kid, I think he’d roll just fine if he occasionally plays 3B to give whoever some reps at short. But it’s his to lose.
I don’t get too concerned about defensive numbers in 18-19 year old players. The professional game comes at a player at a much greater speed than does the high school game. It would be interesting to see defensive splits comparing the first half of the season versus the second half.
Maybe it’s been done, but a study tracking defensive stats age by age across careers, at least through the first mlb year, would be really interesting. As much as one must adjust offensively across different levels at which players are better than those at the next lower level, so, too, does a player have to be able to make defensive adjustments as the game just gets faster at every level.
Derek Jeter famously made over 50 errors at short stop in A ball. Young man turned out just fine.
Balcazar, Jorge, Cabrera…….plenty of redundant prospect capital here if Krall needs to make a trade. I’d be inclined to explore that avenue when we consider they may not stick at SS moving forward.
Arroyo is nearly untouchable for me though along with Sal Stewart.
Each one is fully capable of continuing to hit their way upward. Arroyo will produce plenty of trade inquiries, but I’m with you. Kids who play short as well as he does are keepers. He is electric on defense. Reminds me of Barrero at his best. Classic actions.
It may be best for Cabrera to ultimately move over to 3B so he “only” has to contend with Marte ahead of him in GABP. I suspect he continues playing short stop, though, as having that multi position guy who’s legit at SS with his bat behind Marte, Elly, & McClain just makes too much sense. There is Arroyo, of course, but Cabrera’s ETA is likely 2026 at the very, very earliest and, in fact, is more like 27.
Petty’s stuff just looks “big league”. Even in the video clips you can see that his slider has a tone of bite to it. And he appears to have great command with his fast all. He looks like Mahle with a better put away pitch. I am excited about this kid.
One of the more interesting trends in the minor leagues has been how much pitchers’ innings are limited. MLB is pondering limiting pitching staffs to twelve players, which is supposed to improve the value of starting pitchers. From where I sit, few teams, if any, appear to be training starters to go 6+ innings anymore. As the free agent market plays out, I expect Aaron Nola to command a premium as he does pitch deep into games, which implies it’s not a valuation issue. More likely, teams recognize that few pitchers are effective facing lineups 3+ times. If that’s the case, reducing the pitching staff will lead to more burned-out bullpens and potential injuries.
I agree MLB should increase the pitching staff to 14, and not reduce it to 12. We don’t need a 13th position player except for rare scenarios, but an extra pitcher would help keep arms healthy.
I think we’re going to see the multi inning reliever come back into fashion, especially if the reduce the pitching staff to 12.
I agree, that multi-inning relievers would help a lot. I need to think through adding a pitcher and reducing a position player–that’s something teams were doing before the 13-pitcher limit was set. That said, 12-man staffs could prove disastrous as teams aren’t grooming their prospects to pitch deep into games anymore.
I added more thoughts about this on RNL. Please let me know what you think if you have the time.
Crazy. Growing up watching baseball in the 70s I remember pitching staffs being at either at 9 or 10 pitchers
@JaxDan, but in the 70s and 80s, how many pitchers fastball’s averaged 95+ mph? How many topped 100 mph? It takes more effort for today’s pitchers to consistently sustain the power they can generate. That level of effort is one of the factors affecting how long starters are effective in games. Starters approaching 200 innings are now rare birds. in the 70s and 80s several shot well past that mark.
@BK, I don’t like the idea of penalizing a team for how they use their pitching staff. I could see maybe creating a new incentive for teams with X amount of quality starts. Maybe it would be a financial or draft incentive? That’s if we really want to influence how a team uses it’s pitching staff.
@MBS, yeah, Keith Law wrote about tying the DH to the starting pitcher. I’m not sure how well it would work. I’m not against analytics at all, but like happens often in business, when one company finds a new advantage, others in the industry soon follow.
I’ll go back to Aaron Nola–he’s not exactly overpowering but its easy to see how he helped his good team (wildcard) make two consecutive deep playoff runs. I think the solution is teams training their pitchers to dial back on the power to increase command, and develop multiple quality offerings to keep hitters off balance throughout the game. Easier said than done, but following the minors as closely as a lot of here do, I see most every team prepping their pitchers to go all out for shorter and shorter spurts.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Petty skyrocket this year like Abbott did last year. Until Lowder shows otherwise, I think Petty is the best pitching prospect we have.
I agree MBS. With Boyle gone I now consider Petty as the most under rated prospect we have. I have him ranked #2 behind Marte.
Until you see some of these write-ups it may not hit you how good the farm system is these days. That said, it seems they may need more/better pitching prospects, then again who doesn’t?
Maybe the nit-pickiest of issues, but should Hinds be higher, at least in the top ten? Is it his age, or just the 1/2 year of dramatic improvement? Or just arguable that they now have 15 to 20 top 10 prospects?
I got Sal Stewert ahead of both Cabrera and Jorge.
Stewert might be reduced to 1b or DH but he’s the best pure hitter in the Reds org and more and likely the best pure hitter power combo. Also, with the best walk to K ratio.
Do you like Stewart more than Collier? After this year I’m not so sure anymore.
Yes,
I don’t think he will ever outgrow the position. The truth is, he is more than likely to be moved when Arroyo or Cabrera are ready to play in the bigs, if they’re not traded. He can play the outfield better than the other two. Simple as that. That’s the truth.
That being Elly not outgrowing the position.
None of the players you mentioned have ever played in the outfield so to say “he can play the outfield better than the other two, simple as that, that’s the truth” is a wild thing to say.
Sal Stewart. 546 career pa’s and more walks than strikeouts. I’m not qualified to say if that is elite or not, but it has got to be rare.
One thing that’s been mentioned is he really worked on conditioning last off season. It’s seems a given he is naturally athletic but his adjustment to getting the balls he hit in the air more, and the 10 stolen bases, add credence to that. This guy could be a monster (technical baseball term).
I’m really intrigued about Carson Spiers making the list….
I think Spiers has a lot of value. His college time was at closer and yet he’s become an effective starter. That, alone, says value to me. Plus his stuff has developed really well (Kyle Boddy/Driveline had a pretty good article about him last season). And, watching Spiers at AA after he returned to starting, this guy is highly competitive on the mound. He just doesn’t give in. A couple games, he and Trautwein were really locked in. He like a Sonny Gray in Tyler Mahle’s body.
I wish I knew more about pitching deliveries but it sure looks like Petty’s center of gravity is low and that he uses his body well to drive his motion forward.
One question is, can he go from his 68 innings to 150 innings in two more minor league seasons? And is that number (150) where he’d need to be for a ML debut as a starter?
That will be the issue with Petty. The way the rotation was set up in AA, he could have gotten one more start. Not sure that would really make a difference, but who knows. The COWBOY has stated that for younger pitchers, you should add about 20 – 30 innings a year. So that would put Petty at 90-100 innings, next year and then potentially up to 125-130 the year after. You saw what happened to Abbott when the attempted a major increase in innings. Not effective at all those last so many starts.
I am starting to wonder if 150-175 innings from a starter is now the accepted norm? I remember when it was about 225 or so, but with the drive to micro manage and use the bullpen more, maybe we don’t need as many innings anymore?
Not only is it the accepted norm, it’s what is being asked and demanded by management unless the pitcher is truly an ace-caliber guy. In today’s game the 3rd trip through the order penalty simply isn’t something teams are willing to risk often for non-elite pitchers. Batters are too good, there aren’t “easy outs” in the big leagues anymore – no more is there 2-3 “slap the ball at the turf and run” hitters in most lineups.
But the problem here is that relievers are also not being asked to pitch as much. The long reliever doesn’t exist, when the reality is that each team should probably have 3 of them given how starters are used. Instead teams just try to use options to burn through arms at a 1-inning per outing pace. It’s why the MLBPA fought to get the “a guy can’t be optioned more than 5 times in a year” thing put in the CBA – to keep teams from truly playing the up-and-down game with guys who are actually big league talents but at losing money/service time simply because the team wants to play games with the roster numbers/limits.
I imagine all of the up-and-down promotion/demotions are also emotionally taxing on players.
Doug, Do you think that MLB would consider adding another roster spot for the whole season? Or require that staffs have to maintain a certain number of pitchers at all times? I don’t see how this approach is going to hold over even more time.
And thank you for the explanation.
I think it’s pretty complicated. I can’t imagine owners wanting to shell out the money for another active roster spot…. so that’s going to be hurdle #1. But I also don’t see front offices liking the idea of limiting the number of pitchers on the roster. Now, the baseball people don’t always get their way when it comes to stuff like this.
Honestly, though, I have no idea how it’s going to work out. I think at the pace we’ve moved in the last couple of years that teams are going to start having designated “piggy back” systems for at least some of their starters. That’s going to bring the long reliever back, but not in the way that guy used to be used – mostly in emergencies. The new long reliever role will just be “he pitches 3-4 innings after our #4 starter finishes up his 4-5 innings.
The multi-inning reliever is a spot where the Reds have really missed the target. Just look at last year’s performance by Robert Stephenson and Jeff Hoffman. An excellent book end trade of like-for-like and now the Reds have neither. I forget if was here or on another website, but someone commented that Hoffman is line for a nice arb award, and Stephenson is hitting it big as a first time free agent. They may serve as the prototype high-draft pick, didn’t make it as starters, but settle into excellent 2-3 ip spots.
How many in-game comments did we all read/post last season about letting a reliever pitch a second inning? That was a huge hole in the Reds roster.
Optimist, taking that thought forward, so many of the starters in this system should be candidates for the bullpen to make the bullpen truly elite. Lodolo, Williamson, Ashcraft, Phillips, Spiers, Stoudt, and more. All worth considering especially if they can add via FA.
Neither Hoffman or Stephenson were used in multi-inning roles in 2023. Even though both are former high picks/starters, they were one-inning or less guys.
BK – Hoffman actually had several 2 ip appearences early in the season for the Phillies, and the Reds used him as such previously. I don’t follow the Phils, so don’t know why it changed – perhaps he pitched his way into a late inning set up role? Stephenson was all 1 ip or less, and the Rays have an excellent bullpen so I have few doubts he was handled very well in their system – just wonder if they considered expanding that, or if his next team will do so.
I don’t think the Reds are built for a 6-man rotation today, but by 25 they might be.
Starters (5 IP = 135 total IP)
Greene, Abbott, Ashcraft, (FA Starter), Lowder, Williamson
Long men (3 IP = 121.5 total IP)
Petty, Lodolo, Spires, Phillips
Closer (1 IP = 54 total IP)
Diaz, Moll, Richardson
The thing I like about this setup is you could easily move a long man into the 6 man or vice versa due to injury or performance issues. The thing I hate about this setup is I still believe that you should put the ball in the best arm as often as possible. It does seem to address a lot of the above trends in the game, but it was fun to map out regardless.
I am not sure that you need a 6 man rotation if you are limiting starter’s innings.
I like the idea of an opener this year (2 – 4 innings every 4th game):
Antone, Lodolo or Williamson and two of (Phillips, Richardson, Petty or Lowder) when/if ready.
SP 4 – 6 Innings – Greene, Ashcraft, FA or Cease, Abbott, Williamson or Lodolo.
RP – Diaz, Moll, Sims, Young, Hader
I wasn’t limiting them, I was just acknowledging that 5 IP is par for the course for for starters in todays game.
2023 average IP per start
Greene 5.09, Abbott 5.19, Ashcraft 5.6, Williamson 5.08
Go 7, 8, or 9 if you can.
When it’s all said and done it sure is nice to have some good to very good talent in the Reds farm.
Finally fun and exciting to be a Reds fan. ”The time has arrived.” Most importantly for the long hall.
Since Sandridge has become a free agent it appears he is no longer a member of the Surprise AFL team. He is not listed tonight as one of teams subs.
Yeah – if you’re a free agent there’s no reason at all to risk injury out there, especially with what he’s already shown.
This whole situation is very strange