At the time it was arbitrarily decided to end the nearly two-day voting window for the #1 prospect in the Cincinnati Reds system in this, our 2026 Community Prospect Rankings, Sal Stewart was the runaway victor with over half of the 266 responses.
Here are the official results from the new voting mechanism that we opted to use this year after the move to the new CMS rendered the old polling system unavailable:
Sal, who made his big league debut in 2025 with aplomb after mashing his way through both AA Chattanooga and AAA Louisville before that, has already established that he’ll be a major, major part of the Reds club in ‘26 despite only turning 22 years of age in December. Whether he’ll be the team’s primary 1B, an option all around the infield, or even the go-to DH most days remains to be seen, but what’s undeniable is that his unique combination of strike-zone awareness and in-game power is going to be impossible to keep out of the lineup.
There was varied support among the others included in this particular round of voting, and we’ll add more names to the voting threads as we progress through these rankings.
For now, though, let’s congratulate Sal and hope the Reds truly did draft the kind of player who’ll be a cornerstone of their lineup for the next decade – or more!