In January the 2026 international signing period opened up. The Cincinnati Reds made a big splash when they signed outfielder Angel Nunez with a signing bonus of $3,000,000. He was the top signing from their class and one of the top prospects available in all of Major League Baseball for the signing period. There’s nearly six months between signing day and the start of the Dominican Summer League season, though, so there was a lot of waiting around before these guys could get their professional debut in. That ended today for some as the DSL season began. And Angel Nunez made the wait worth it. In the 4th inning against the DSL Pirates Gold he came up to the plate with the bases loaded and worked a full count. He then unloaded on the baseball and unloaded the bases with a grand slam.
That’s how you make a debut. The game is still going on, but as things sit Angel Nunez is 1-2 with a walk and that grand slam for the DSL Rojos. While I did not get the distance on his home run it did come off of the bat at 104 MPH and was on an 89 MPH 2-seamer.
The ball might be flying well today in the Dominican. The DSL Reds are playing their game at home against the Padres Brown squad and in that game there have been four home runs hit in the first four innings. Liberts Aponte, who had seven home runs last year for the Rojos and outhomered the entire rest of the team, started out his 2026 season with the Reds with a home run. Diego Munoz and Isaac Garcia have also homered in that game for the team.
Aponte was the clubs top international signing from 2025 and when he signed the reports were that he was more ahead of things with his glove at shortstop than he was with his bat. Then he hit seven home runs in 45 games, though his average was only .247 on the season. The 18-year-old has shown far more power than was expected from him and at least for the first game of this season it’s continuing to show up.