Monday links!
The Athletic’s Keith Law released his latest Top 100 overall prospect rankings this morning, and five members of the Cincinnati Reds farm made the cut.
Each of Chase Burns, Rhett Lowder, Edwin Arroyo, Cam Collier, and Sal Stewart made the cut, ranking (in that order) from #40 overall all the way to the #100 prospect on the list.
Law pulled no punches in his evaluations, per usual, making sure to point out the flaws each possesses that keep them from being the kind of ‘sure thing’ prospects that would find themselves into the Top 10. That said, he made sure to highlight the plus skills owned by each that landed them on this list in the first place – Burns’ slider, Lowder’s three-pitch command, Arroyo’s potential on defense, Collier’s power, and Stewart’s plate approach.
It’s a solid, if not spectacular showing for the farm in the eyes of yet another evaluator this offseason, as MLB Pipeline recently included the same five Reds farmhands on their own Top 100 list last week. Burns was again the highest in this grouping (#26 overall), but Stewart (#84) jumped ahead of both Collier (#91) and Arroyo (#91). Again, a pretty decent overall showing featuring two pitchers on the cusp of big league opportunities and a trio of hitters who – either due to injury or youth – are just now set for the chance to ply their trade in the more hitter-friendly parks of the upper minors for the first time.
In other news, closer Alexis Díaz spoke with MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon about his need to get ahead in counts better in 2025 than he did in his up and down 2024 season. He cited potential mechanics issues being at fault, which is something that hopefully he and pitching maestro Derek Johnson can fix with a full offseason to study it.
Over on Bluesky, blog friend Razzball pointed out something former MLB exec Dan O’Dowd had to say about the offseasons of various baseball clubs, Cincinnati Reds prominently included:
“Not including Dodgers” is an Olympic powerlifter
I love the Tito Francona hire and cannot wait to watch his impact on this club. That said, adding a ~2 WAR pitcher at the cost of their second best hitter from last year only to add a bat who profiles as slightly worse than said hitter doesn’t exactly scream ‘good offseason’ to me, let alone one better than adding Kyle Tucker, Garrett Crochet, or Juan ‘frickin’’ Soto. Go Reds, though.
Over at what remains of SI.com, they noticed that Will Benson is sporting a new batting stance in his winter workouts. Benson struggled mightily during the 2024 season (-1.4 bWAR, 76 OPS+), enough that prioritizing a significant outfield addition became a pretty clear priority for the front office in the eyes of many (present company included). However, that major OF addition hasn’t yet arrived, and Benson is clearly still in the mix to hopefully replicate his 2023 form.
(You may recall the Reds got him from Cleveland, where Francona was manager when Benson was both drafted and when he made his big league debut in 2022. Maybe that’s a sign of a previously existing relationship fostering a good chance for a rebound. Maybe it’s worth pointing out that Cleveland shipped out Benson to the Reds after one poor big league cameo for the likes of Justin Boyd and Steve Hajjar. We shall see!)
Finally, we’ll ruffle a few feathers here, but the 2025 ZiPS projections are now out for the ‘rebuilding’ St. Louis Cardinals, and I won’t lie…they look considerably better than those of the Reds right now.