The 2026 Cincinnati Reds Minor League Pitching Leaders

With the 2026 Minor League Baseball season coming to an end last week we’re taking a look back at the season. Yesterday we looked at the offensive leaders throughout the organization. Today we are taking a look at the pitching leaders in 2026 from the Cincinnati Reds farm system.

The Starting Pitchers

To say that it was a down year for pitching in the organization would be an understatement. From the lowest levels to Double-A, the baseball was juiced. It was flying further than it had in the previous years and we know that. Triple-A uses the same ball as MLB does and there was no evidence that it played differently than in the past.

Still, things were tough to look at. The best ERA by a pitcher who threw 70+ innings and spent at least half of their time starting in the minor leagues this year was 4.48. Last year Jose Franco had the best ERA in the system at 3.11. Only one starting pitcher who pitched in the US this season and was a “starter” had more than six wins. Ysaias Escalona didn’t meet the 70-inning threshold, but he was a starter in the Dominican Summer League and piled up 10 wins so I made the executive decision to include him.

Jose Acuna showed up in the top three five times, including leading the way in three categories. But even in the categories he led in, he didn’t exactly have outstanding numbers there – he just happened to perform better than the other guys.

For the second season in a row no pitcher on the farm threw 125.0 innings. In each of the last two years the leaders fell one out shy of getting to that round mark.

The Relief Pitchers

The relief pitching was better in 2026 than the starting pitching as, at least from an individual level. But it still felt down in many areas for the top guys. Maybe it was the juiced ball causing a little ballooning of numbers.

Jesus Colina’s 2.82 ERA led the farm for the relievers, but that was nearly half a run higher than the two guys who led the way last year at 2.34. Colina’s 7.8% walk rate was also best on the farm, but last season that wouldn’t have cracked the top three spots.

Colina, along with Julian Garcia, are all over this leaderboard. Garcia earned his way to the big leagues with the Reds in June and he just kept getting the job done at the highest level in the sport before he was placed on the injured list last week. Colina pitched for the ACL Reds until their season ended and he joined Single-A Daytona where he continued to perform well.

The Complex League Standouts

This is a bit of it’s own separate category. Very few “starters” were out there starting every five or six days. Most guys were in a piggyback situation where they would alternate who started and who was the bulk reliever. Then of course is the part where most of the pitchers who were in that set up were still only throwing three or four innings per outing no matter which side of the piggyback situation they were on in order to manage their innings. So instead of trying to have a “leaderboard” that wouldn’t make much sense because of how pitchers are used in the DSL and ACL, I’m just going to highlight the performances by guys from their time in those leagues (stats will only be for their time in rookie ball and not their entire season if they did make the jump to Daytona later in the year).

Innings aside, Ysaias Escalona just had one of the better seasons by a starting pitcher since Tony Cingrani’s 2011 and 2012 seasons. He was a league All-Star and the pitcher of the year in the league. Ryjeteri Merite was named an All-Star in the ACL, as was Iker Redona – who was also named the league’s pitcher of the year.