The Cincinnati Reds picked up a 4-3 come-from-behind win over the Texas Rangers on Saturday evening. In that game it was once again the minor leaguers coming off of the bench and providing the offense with the boost that it needed. Trailing 3-1 in the 8th inning it was Alfredo Alcantara starting a 1-out rally with a double. Carlos Jorge then smacked his second triple of the spring to plate a run. Michael Toglia then blasted a 2-run home run to give the Reds a lead that they would hold onto for the win.

Carlos Jorge has been getting a little bit of playing time with the big league club over the last two weeks and he’s been hitting the ball hard, often. He’s had eight batted balls during his time with the Reds this spring. Six of them have been 98.6 MPH or higher. Four of those have been outs and two of them have been triples. He also has a double this spring, but that came on what’s been far and away the softest he’s hit a baseball – 68.4 MPH.

Something that also showed up in the 8th inning after the Toglia home run, though, was a single by Jay Allen II. What made it stand out is that it came off of his bat at 115.3 MPH according to Statcast. To put that in perspective the big league team only had two batted balls last year in the regular season that topped that – home runs by Elly De La Cruz (117.4 MPH) and Noelvi Marte (116.7 MPH). That might not even be the hardest hit ball he’s had this spring, either. This evening he posted on instagram a video of him on the backfields where he had a 117 MPH exit velocity (this was likely measured by Trackman, where as his 115.3 in the big league spring game was measured by Hawkeye).

Early in his career his scouting reports noted he may have a chance for plus power. The now 23-year-old hasn’t quite been able to put things together in the box to this point to bring that kind of power out. He’s hit just 26 home runs in 369 games and has a career minor league slugging percentage of .343. Once he left the complex league he’s never hit higher than .227, which happened last season in Double-A.

But every so often he’d flash big time power with long home runs. Back in late July of 2023 when he was with Dayton he connected for a 461-foot home run, which you can watch below. That was his only home run in 31 games that season.

In the last two seasons he’s hit 10 and eight home runs, playing in a combined 218 games for Dayton and Chattanooga. Last season he only hit two home runs 400 feet, with the longest being 418 feet. In 2024 he also only had two home runs of 400 feet, with the longest being 423 feet.

A 115.3 MPH exit velocity isn’t quite the top of the chart, but if we put it on the scouting scale that’s a 70-grade exit velocity. And that shows us the power potential that Allen II has. There’s power in there for him to tap into, but to get there he’s probably going to have to hit a lot better, too. While his strikeout rate has never been poor outside of his injury-plagued 31-game season in 2023, he simply hasn’t been able to find hits even when making contact. There’s been very little power to go with the struggles in hitting for average, too. The flashes are there but he’s going to need to make more consistent, hard contact.

On the backfields this weekend Adolfo Sanchez got a chance to show off some of his power. He posted the video(s) below of a 3-run home run he hit against Cleveland (who the Reds A-ball teams played on both Friday and Saturday).

This will be the first season for Sanchez in the US. In 2024 he signed the largest bonus of any of the Cincinnati Reds international prospects from that signing class. He went out and struggled at the plate that year as a 17-year-old in the Dominican Summer League, hitting just .216/.356/.345 with 60 strikeouts in 177 plate appearances.

Last season was the exact opposite of that. The Reds kept him in the Dominican Summer League as an 18-year-old and he crushed the ball. In 36 games Sanchez hit .339/.474/.504 while walking more than he struck out and he only had 21 strikeouts in 154 plate appearances, cutting his strikeout rate from 34% down to 14%. In late July he was going to be brought stateside to play in the bridge and instructional league by the Reds, but he injured his knee. While he still did come to the US he did not play the rest of the year and instead focused on getting healthy and prepared for 2026.