Photo: Joey Tedesco/Daytona Tortugas
Alfredo Duno ran away with the 2025 Florida State League’s Most Valuable Player award. With the Daytona Tortugas the catcher led the league in nearly every category they track for hitters except for triples and batting average. He was second in the league in average. His time in the Arizona Fall League, though, was more of a struggle. One of the youngest players in the league, the 19-year-old played in 15 regular season games and hit .213/.356/.298 and didn’t hit a single home run.
The playoffs began on Wednesday and that’s when Duno got into the groove of things. He hit a career long 445-foot home run to help lead Peoria to a come-from-behind win to advance them to the next round of playoffs. That was merely the young Venezuelan dipping his toes in the water. On Thursday night he did the biggest cannonball you’ve ever seen off of the diving board.
In the top of the 1st inning he connected on an 0-2 curveball for a 3-run home run. His 381-foot blast put the Javelinas up 3-0. In the 5th inning Peoria was up 4-1 and Duno came through again. With Leo Balcazar on first base, Duno got an 89 MPH sinker that didn’t sink enough and he unloaded on it for a 453-foot 2-run shot. That set a new career high for the longest homer of his professional career.
In the 7th inning he came back to the plate and was hit by a pitch. In the 9th inning the first pitch he saw came in high and tight. So did the next pitch as he was able to duck under it. The third pitch he saw caught the strikezone and Alfredo Duno hit it to California. Well, almost. His previous home run was the longest of his career for about an hour because the one he hit in the 9th went 456 feet and established itself as the new top dog.
On the night the Reds top prospect hit 1,290 feet worth of home runs. He led his team to a second win in the playoffs and now has Peoria in the AFL Championship game on Friday. You can watch the game at 3:30pm ET on MLB.com (free link here) as Peoria will take on Surprise for the title.
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