The Cincinnati Reds are promoting Sheng-En Lin to Single-A Daytona to join the Tortugas according to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi. As I type this the move is not official but it’s coming soon.
This season was the first for Sheng-En Lin in which he both pitched and hit. In his first two seasons he spent time as a position player only. He played in center field and at shortstop in 2023, but in 2024 he spent most of his time at third base (32 starts) and a little at shortstop (eight starts). In 2025 he pitched in 10 games and spent another 26 games with the ACL Reds as their designated hitter.
He struggled at the plate in 2025, hitting .172/.348/.310 with two home runs, 24 walks, and 30 strikeouts in 113 plate appearances. The 19-year-old left-handed hitter did hit better in the final three weeks of the season, posting a .924 OPS in nine games where he had five extra-base hits – including both of his home runs on the year. He also walked more than he struck out during that time.
It was on the mound where Sheng-En Lin stood out, though. His usage was very limited as the club slowly built him up after he didn’t spend time pitching in the regular season (he did pitch in the bridge league/instructional league in 2024) until this year. The right-handed pitcher threw 30.1 innings in seven starts and three relief appearances and posted a 2.67 ERA. He only allowed 19 hits, walked 10 batters, and he struck out 40 of the 123 hitters he faced.
In his final three starts of the season he threw 4.0 innings in each outing as he began to get stretched out a little bit. Heading to Daytona he will focus only on pitching. When I followed up to ask if that was just for 2025 or something moving forward I was told that the plan for now is to pitch only.
Stats in rookie ball can sometimes tell you something. But sometimes they don’t tell us much about how someone will perform at the next level. With that said, hitters managed a .174/.260/.321 line against Sheng-En Lin this year out in Arizona. Lefties and righties both struggled against him, with righties hitting .174/.240/.348 and lefties posting a .175/.274/.302 line. But righties had just three walks and 25 strikeouts in 50 plate appearances, while lefties had seven walks and 15 strikeouts in 73 plate appearances.
Sheng-En Lin pitched with Hawkeye running in one of his outings this season. In that game he was throwing a fastball, a change up, and a slider. This is just one start, so take that sample size for what it is worth, but he averaged 92.5 with his fastball on that day, while the slider worked in the upper 70’s, and his change up came in the low 80’s. He threw his slider 59% of the time that day, with his fastball being used 34% and his change up 7%.
You can see the career stats for Sheng-En Lin here.