Photo: Joey Tedesco/Daytona Tortugas
While most of the leagues around the world took the day off on Christmas, the Mexican Winter League had a full schedule. Cincinnati Reds prospect Ichiro Cano has been getting regular playing time for Culiacan this winter and on Christmas night he was in the lineup as the team’s designated hitter.
It’s been a good month for Cano (pictured above). In 13 games played entering Thursday night’s game during December he had hit .367 with four walks and seven strikeouts. He kept his hot hitting going against Mexicali, picking up two more singles in four at-bats as the 20-year-old raised his line through 43 games to .284/.383/.358. Cano has walked 18 times with 27 strikeouts in his 130 trips to the plate for Culiacan this winter.
We are entering the last week of the regular season in the league with the final game being played on December 30th. Many of the leagues are entering the final week or are already there. The Venezuelan Winter League plays today and tomorrow to wrap up their regular season. Down in Puerto Rico they will play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to complete the regular season. Australia’s winter league still have three weeks remaining in their regular season.
The Dominican Winter League regular season came to an end earlier this week. The Reds three regulars that have been playing in the league – Carlos Jorge, Hector Rodriguez, and Francisco Urbaez – all saw their teams make the playoffs. The round robin will begin on Saturday evening.
Fangraphs Top Reds Prospects
Earlier this week Fangraphs Eric Longenhagen published his Cincinnati Reds Top 39 prospects list. At the top of the list was Alfredo Duno. Longenhagen really, really likes what Duno brings to the table across the board on both sides of the ball.
You really should go check out the list. And read the reports. While there are some reports that don’t match up entirely with ones I’ve gotten, or ones from other reputable sources – we don’t all talk to the exact same people or have the exact same information. More of all of that is better. With that said, Longenhagen certainly has some outlier rankings compared to the Baseball America Top 30 or my own Top 25. There’s not anything wrong with that – we all value certain things a little differently when it comes to upside, floor, risk, etc. As I always say – pay less attention to the number next to the name and a lot more attention to what the write up says about the player because that’s the important part. Even if you don’t agree with the ranking itself there’s valuable information in the write up.
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