Alfredo Duno Photo: David TuckerNews-Journal/USA TODAY NETWORK

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Cincinnati Reds. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.

Other Prospects of Note

Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.

Intriguing Power, Beaucoup Whiffs
Ethan O’Donnell, OF
Ricky Cabrera, 3B
Ruben Ibarra, 1B
Mason Neville, OF
Kien Vu, OF

O’Donnell is a lefty-hitting outfielder drafted out of Virginia in 2023. He’s already risen to Double-A, but has been in the honorable mention section of Reds lists since debuting because of the huge hole in his swing against fastballs up and away from him. His measurable contact (30-grade) and power (50-grade) are in the “org depth” area for a corner outfielder. Cabrera signed for $2.7 million back in 2022. He’s a free swinger and below-average defender who has had some underlying red flags related to his chase and contact, even back in rookie ball when his surface line was great. He missed most of 2025 with a knee injury. Ibarra, 26, is a XXL first baseman with plus raw power. He posted a 136 wRC+ with Chattanooga in 2025 but had a sub-70% contact rate, which isn’t going to cut it at first. Neville was a toolsy high schooler who ended up at Arkansas, where he struggled to get on the field. He transferred to Oregon and K’d a ton there as a sophomore before improving as a junior to the point where he went in the fourth round and got a bonus just under $700,000. I don’t think he’s going to hit. Vu is a little lefty-hitting outfielder from Arizona State with a big uppercut swing. He hit for power at ASU and in A-ball after the 2025 draft (he was the Reds’ ninth rounder), but he faces questions about whether this swing will allow him to make a viable rate of contact as he climbs.

Balanced (But Quiet) Offensive Skill Sets
Carlos Sanchez, 3B/SS/CF
Anthony Stephan, LF/1B
Peyton Stovall, 1B/2B
Francisco Urbaez, 2B
Johnny Ascanio, UTIL

Sanchez has been a good surface-level stat performer during a couple of his pro seasons, including 2025, when he slashed .277/.379/.412 across both A-ball levels. His swing’s length makes me skeptical he’ll be able to continue to perform like this. He added center field into his defensive mix in 2025. Stephan posted an above-average, OBP-driven line at Dayton even though the corner bat slugged under .400. His 2025 season was good enough for him to get on the radar, but Stephan is a tad undersized and under-tooled for a hitter who plays left field and first base. Stovall is a contact-oriented 2B/1B who has struggled to produce at all in two pro seasons despite plus underlying contact rates; he’s a career .199 hitter. Urbaez, 28, is a good contact hitter who seems to have solved Triple-A, as he has a 125 wRC+ there each of the last two seasons. He has a low-end utilityman’s offensive skill set but lacks the defensive versatility to play that kind of role on a big league roster, as he’s pretty limited to second base. Ascanio is an undersized 22-year-old infielder who reached Double-A in 2025 and made an above-average rate of contact. He’s really only capable of playing second base and doesn’t have the power to profile there.

DSL Hitters
Angel Salio, 3B
Pablo Nunez, OF
Naibel Mariano, INF
Diorland Zambrano, INF
Jordan Ouanyou, 1B
Yojanser Calzado, CF

Salio is a projectable, lefty-hitting third baseman who had an OPS over .900 as a 17-year-old debutant. His swing has low ball path, but it’s so long that he averaged -4 degrees of launch in 2025 because he’s too often very late to the contact point and drives the ball into the ground. His feel for the barrel is okay and he has pretty exciting raw power for his age; he’s a potential breakout candidate in 2026 if added strength makes him shorter to the ball. Nunez is a tiny but toolsy outfield prospect who K’d at a 4% clip in 2025, but he needs to prove he has the physical prowess to handle more mature opponents before he can join the main section of the list. Highly-ranked as an amateur, Mariano had a much better second DSL season than his value-crushing debut, and he still has exciting bat speed and physical projection. His tendency to chase is still too great to consider him listable on the main section, but readers should consider him back on the radar after a better 2025. Zambrano is a versatile, 19-year-old Venezuelan infielder who, in his second DSL stint, struck out just 6% of the time. His swing is very similar to Spencer Steer’s, Zambrano is just scaled way down in terms of size and power. Ouanyou is less notable for his performance right now, and more because he’s from Paris and stomped onto the radar during a U-18 World Cup tournament with Team France. He’s a big-framed, lefty-hitting first baseman who was likely always going to need multiple years to adjust to pro quality pitching (just imagine how bad the pitching he faced in France was) and it wasn’t shocking that he hit .196 in his debut. Calzado is a speedy little outfielder who floats from base to base and picked up 41 steals in 42 games during his second DSL season.

DSL Lanzadores
Dony Aguilera, RHP
Jonathan Santana, RHP
Anthony Aquino, RHP

Aguilera is a 19-year-old Venezuelan righty who posted a 1.70 ERA in his second DSL season with a mature three-pitch mix headlined by a fading low-80s changeup. This guy can pitch; Aguilera can create depth on a curveball and his delivery is balanced and consistent, but he’s a bit less athletic and projectable than the main section of the list demands of a DSL pitcher. Santana, 18, is a 6-foot-5 Dominican righty who sits about 90 with big natural cut. He’s really wild right now, but if he ends up growing into his body and throwing really hard with this kind of cut, he might be something. Aquino is a wild 19-year-old Dominican righty who sits 93-98.

Relief-Only Sleepers
Joseph Menefee, LHP
Mike Villani, RHP
Luke Hayden, RHP
Joel Valdez, LHP
Gabe Starks, RHP
Jose Montero, RHP
Beau Blanchard, RHP
Cole Schoenwetter, RHP
Bryan Salgado, RHP
Dominic Scheffler, LHP

Menefee is a lefty out of Texas A&M with a plus changeup and slider, but 30-grade fastball velo and control. Villani was acquired from the Dodgers in exchange for a DFA’d Alexis Díaz and sent to Daytona. At the time of the trade, he was touching 97 on the backfields, but his velo tanked after the deal and Villani sat 92 in Florida during the rest of his season. He turns over a plus tailing changeup that might allow him to profile in a relief role, provided the velo returns. Hayden signed for just shy of $200,000 out of Indiana State in 2024 and struggled as a starter in 2025. He sits 93-97, but his fastball doesn’t miss bats, and a lack of feel for location hurts his otherwise nasty slider’s effectiveness. He should move to the bullpen soon. Originally a Phillie, Valdez was traded to the Yankees as part of the 2021 Nick Nelson deal and then acquired by the Reds via the minor league phase of the Rule 5 draft after the 2024 season. He’s a low-ish slot lefty who has an average fastball/slider combo, on the fringe of the 40-man. Starks is a 23-year-old cross-bodied A-ball reliever who’ll touch 98 and bend in the occasional plus slider. He’s at least one full grade away from having viable control. Montero is a 22-year-old righty A-ball starter whose low-90s fastball and changeup both have big sink. He doesn’t throw enough strikes to be on the main section of the list right now.

Blanchard just kept plugging away after four college seasons (three at New Orleans, one at Louisiana Monroe) with stints in the MLB Draft and Frontier Leagues. The Reds signed him away from the Florence Y’alls (who have pretty cool merch) and sent him to Daytona, where his breaking balls generated plus miss. He’s a deep relief sleeper in this org. Schoenwetter was signed away from a UC Santa Barbara commitment for nearly $2 million (he’d have been in the same rotation as Tyler Bremner and Jackson Flora), but he hasn’t thrown strikes or been able to exit A-ball yet as a pro. He has a great curveball but needs to throw strikes before he’s considered a prospect again. Salgado is a 5-foot-10 teenage righty reliever whose heater was in the 94-97 range and touched 98 during his very brief window of health in 2025. He was shut down in May with an elbow sprain and didn’t pitch the rest of the year. Scheffler, 21, is a 6-foot-4 Swiss lefty who signed for 165,660 Swiss Francs in 2023. If he makes it to the bigs, he’ll be the first Swiss-born spieler since Otto Hess, who pitched for Cleveland and Boston in the early 1900s. There’s a fantastic 30-minute German-language documentary about Scheffler’s first year in pro ball on YouTube (readers can monkey with the closed captions so that they’re in English). The highlights: Scheffler played amateur ball in Zurich and Regensburg, and for a time was an exchange student in Japan. He was signed knowing he’d need TJ, which he returned from in 2024. He likes to play MarioKart with his buddies, but felt homesick in Phoenix when he first came over here. He has nice breaking ball and a non-zero chance to reach the bigs.

Depth Starters
Jose Acuna, RHP
Stharlin Torres, RHP
Tristan Smith, LHP
Adrian Herrera, RHP

Acuna is another of the prospects acquired from the Mets for Tyler Naquin a few years ago. His fastball has plus riding action and plays like a 55 even though it has 40-grade velocity, but the rest of the 23-year-old’s stuff is below average. Torres is a stocky 19-year-old righty who held 92-95 mph fastball velocity as a complex level starter (just under 40 frames) in 2025. Mechanical effort and a lack of projectability keep him relegated in this tier until we get a better idea as to whether he can sustain this arm strength across 100 or more innings. Smith signed for $600,000 as the team’s fifth rounder in 2024 and missed most of 2025 due to a knee injury. In college, he had three average pitches and below-average control. Herrera, 21, is a former two-way high schooler who has moved to the mound in pro ball. He has maybe the most picturesque delivery in this entire system, but his arm strength and control are both below average.

System Overview

The Reds system is a shade below average on pure talent and will probably fall into the bottom 10 throughout 2026 because so many of their best prospects (eight of the top 10 here, in fact) are on the cusp of the big leagues and projected to graduate from rookie status during the next two seasons. That’s not entirely bad news. Graduating prospects because you’ve turned them into big leaguers is kind of the point, though here we’re talking more about nice role players than stars. Aside from Sal Stewart, who is poised to make an everyday impact in the big league lineup, most of the players who will be contributing soon are set to do so in supporting roles.

The high-upside hitters in this system are years away, and they’re incredibly volatile. As much as I love Alfredo Duno, he’s risky. Reds fans know all too well how injuries can impact the performance and longevity of catchers; they’ve lived through the rise and fall of Devin Mesoraco (through no fault of his own) and watched Tyler Stephenson lose chunks of seasons to injury. In addition to the occupational hazard of catching, Duno’s skill set is one of extreme variability because of his chase and contact flaws. But the mere possibility that he’s talented enough to turn into a better-gloved Gary Sánchez makes him a very important prospect.

Tyson Lewis (crazy tools, red flag strikeout risk) and several of the DSL hitters (especially the ones in the 40+ FV tier) are also of this ilk. Steele Hall, who simply wasn’t as seasoned on the showcase circuit as most top 10 picks, is as well. The Reds’ risk tolerance in the amateur market is notable. Most of these guys aren’t going to make it, but if any of them turns into Elly De La Cruz, it will have been worth it to take this approach to drafting and signing players. The only way the Reds seem capable of acquiring franchise-altering talent is to do so in the draft or through the international amateur market; they’re not going to sign a Juan Soto, so it makes sense for them to take some high-dollar chances in those spaces.

The Reds’ international approach is also a lot of fun because they’re active in so many different countries. They sign players from Europe and Asia, and send players to develop in Australia during the winter. I think there’s value in embedding your team’s colors in the collective consciousness of baseball-playing youths in locations where the game is growing, and there are several instances of that in the Reds system.