Photo: Joey Tedesco/Daytona Tortugas
Without going back and looking, it certainly feels like a decade ago far more Cincinnati Reds prospects were playing in the winter leagues than there are now. It seems now that on any given day there might be two or three guys playing around the world when it seemed like that number used to be around double or triple that. Two guys who are playing this week, though, are starting to heat up.
Hector Rodriguez, the Reds #8 prospect, joined Escogido three weeks into their season in the Dominican Winter League. He hit .200 with one walk over his first six games. The last ten days has seen him pick things up as he’s gone 8-25 with four walks. That’s been good for a .320 average and a .400 on-base percentage. Rodriguez has only struck out three times in 30 plate appearances over this stretch. He’s also added in a double, triple, seven runs scored, and he’s driven in three runs.
The Dominican Winter League has multiple ballparks that have Trackman installed and pushing that data public. Rodriguez has 30 batted balls worth of data for Escogido so far. He’s topped out at 110.5 MPH on his exit velocity. His EV50 (the average exit velocity of his top 50% of batted balls) is 97.4 MPH (MLB average is about 100 MPH). In his time with Louisville this year he topped out with an exit velocity of 112.7 MPH. His EV50 with the Bats was 100.4, covering 172 batted balls (bunts are excluded).
On the opposite side of the world we are now in the second week of the Australian Winter League. Drew Davies is playing with Adelaide after having a bit of a breakdown year between the ACL Reds and Daytona Tortugas in 2025.
In the first two games of the winter league season for Davies he went 0-8 with a walk. Since then he’s caught fire, running off a 4-game hitting streak against Perth. Three of those four games have been multi-hit games. He’s also picked up two walks, three doubles, two runs batted in, and he’s scored seven runs in that time. That’s left him with a .304/.385/.435 line through six games.
Ichiro Cano is one of the guys who is playing nearly every day. He’s playing for Culiacan in Mexico. He had a slower start to the season, hitting .231 in 10 games in October. But he started November off by going 3-3 with two walks and two doubles and has hit better this month, posting a .298/.389/.447 line through 13 games with seven walks and 10 strikeouts in 54 plate appearances to go along with four doubles and a home run.
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