There were a few players in the Cincinnati Reds farm system who put up a big season, but Sal Stewart’s combination of performance and level of the organizations that he played at has earned him the 2025 RedsMinorLeagues.com Player of the Year award.

In 2024 Sal Stewart was having a strong season in High-A with the Dayton Dragons, but during the All-Star break he suffered an injury and missed the entire second half of the season. The Reds saw enough in that first half, though, and were fully confident to send Stewart up to Double-A Chattanooga to begin the 2025 season.

His season started out with a 1-for-5 effort with three strikeouts and a hit by pitch on opening day as he took on Rocket City. But things picked up real quick from there. He would hit .301 with nine extra-base hits in April and he stole nine bases. Things were even better in May. In his 24 games with the Lookouts during the month he hit .344 with 10 extra-base hits, but only had one steal in May.

For as good as he was in the first two months Stewart only had three home runs in his 46 games played. In June the lack of home runs continued for the first 10 games of the month, and really he didn’t hit much at all during that stretch. But on June 14th he picked up his first home run of the month and started a stretch where he obliterated the ball for the rest of the month as he homered six times and hit .400 in the final 15 games before the calendar flipped to July. He would only spend 10 more days with the Lookouts before he headed off to play in the Futures Games and then moved up to Triple-A Louisville after that.

The 21-year-old Stewart got out to a slow start with the Bats, going 5-for-28 in the first week (.179) with just one extra-base hit. That turned around on July 26th when he went 4-4 with a double and two home runs against Iowa.

He never really slowed down from there as he hit .315/.394/.629 with 25 extra-base hits in his 38 games for Louisville through the end of August.

That’s where his minor league season ended. He played in 118 minor league games in 2025 between Double-A and Triple-A. Over that time he hit .309/.383/.524 with 34 doubles, 20 home runs, 17 steals, 78 runs scored, and 80 runs batted in. The Reds would call him up at the start of September and he would play in 18 games for them, hitting five home runs and a double during the month.

When the season was over, Sal Stewart saw his name among many stats on the leaderboard in the farm system. Here’s where he ranked among Reds minor league hitters with at least 300 plate appearances:

Doubles – 1stSlugging Percentage – 2ndwRC+ – 2ndHits – 2ndBatting Average – 3rdOPS – 3rdRuns – 3rdRBI – 4thHome Runs – 4thOn-Base Percentage – 7th