A little less than a year ago the Cincinnati Reds signed Adolfo Sanchez as a part of their class of international signings. He got the top signing bonus from the Reds and one of the top bonuses among all players that signed in 2024.
The now 18-year-old had some struggles at the plate during the season. He played for both the DSL Reds and the DSL Rojos – as more than a handful of players did during 2024 – and in his 45 combined games he hit .216/.356/.345. He walked a lot – 30 times in 177 plate appearances – but he also struck out a lot, fanning 60 times.
There’s a lot that should be said about stats in the Dominican Summer League. First – they don’t tend to tell us much about the future of a player. While you would like to see better performance than guys struggle, it’s not too indicative of how they will perform or develop and there’s a billion examples of that. Two, the walk rates for hitters in the league should be taken with a grain of salt. This is the equivalent of high school varsity baseball. Some of these pitchers have no idea at all where the baseball is going.
Getting back to Sanchez, while I will have more of a full scouting report on him in a few weeks when we get to him on the Top 25 season review and scouting report list, I will say that the reports on him still mirror what they were before he signed for the most part.
The video below shows his swing from the regular season and then from instructional league. The angles are different (I can only use what’s available to me), but you can see two big differences.
As noted, during the season he struggled a bit. But it seems that after the season ended and during instructional league he made a change at the plate. During the season he just had a small foot lift and then plant. Now he’s utilizing a toe tap. During the season his hands were a bit higher in his pre-swing set up, and the bat angle was at a negative angle with the bat nearly laying on his shoulder. Now the bat is upright pre-swing.
It will be a little bit of time before we know if these changes are making a difference. The season won’t start for Sanchez until at least April, but it’s more likely that it won’t be until May or June when either the Arizona Complex League or Dominican Summer League begins in 2025.