The Cincinnati Reds selected Tyson Lewis with their 2nd round draft pick in 2024 out of Millard West High School in Omaha. With the new timing of the draft and ending of the complex level season it meant that Lewis did not get a chance to take the field in official games that year and would have to wait until the start of the 2025 season to play in his first professional game.
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When the 2025 season began the Reds kept Tyson Lewis back in Arizona. A month later the complex league season began and the shortstop got things going with the ACL Reds on May 12th after missing the first few days of the season with a minor injury. Lewis quickly made up for lost time, going 5-10 in the first three games, collecting his first home run and triple along the way.
He would go 0-7 over the next two games, drawing two walks. But the next game saw him pick up three hits and for the next month he went off, hitting .378/.402/.537 during that time. That was followed up by a week-long slump where he went 2-15, but he closed out June by going 4-8 with a home run in each of the final two games. Lewis didn’t let up in July, either, hitting .333/.413/.515 in 16 games until the complex league season ended on the 24th.
The very next day Lewis was in Daytona and starting at shortstop for the Tortugas. He announced his presence with authority that day, picking up a 437-foot home run and a double on the day. Things did slow down a bit after that, but they picked up on August 13th when he would go 2-5 with a walk and a home run. Over the next three weeks he would hit .356/.417/.556 for Daytona. Lewis then went into a slump over the next five games as the regular season came to an end with him going 2-17.
For all 2025 Season Reviews and Scouting Reports – click here (these will come out during the week throughout the offseason).
Position: SSÂ | B/T: L/R
Height: 6′ 2″ | Weight: 195 lbs. | Acquired: 2nd Round, 2024 Draft | Born: January 10, 2006
When it comes to pure tools there’s no one in the Reds farm system on par with Tyson Lewis. The raw tools grade out as average to plus across the board.
The best tool is his raw power. Lewis hits the ball very hard for his age. There’s some questioning of the validity of his 119.4 MPH exit velocity he had early on in the Arizona Complex League, but even if we remove that from the world he stacks up with just about any player his age in the world with how hard he hits the baseball. His EV50 (the top 50% of his exit velocities) for data we have is 103.8 MPH and that doesn’t include the 119.4 MPH ball. That would tie him with Fernando Tatis Jr. if he were inserted onto the MLB leaderboard, tying him for 22nd in baseball among the 251 players listed.
He will need to elevate the ball a bit more often if he’s going to be able to fully take advantage of how hard hit can hit the ball, though. His average launch angle is a bit low and his groundball rate does reflect that, though he did get the ball in the air more often in Daytona than he did out in Arizona.
Even as things sit now, the power is expected to be there – it’s just a matter of exactly how much he’ll get to. There is a much larger question surrounding how well he will hit for average. The ingredients are there. He uses the entire field. He has power and hits the ball hard. The speed should allow him to grab a few extra infield hits. But he also struggled to make contact at times in his debut and he was completely overmatched in a small sample size worth of plate appearances against left-handed pitching in 2025. The latter two are areas he’s going to need to improve upon as he continues to develops and move up the ladder.
Defensively he’s capable of playing shortstop right now. There is a possibility that he outgrows the position as his body matures, but he’s got solid range today and a plus arm. If he does outgrow the position, he’s got plenty of arm at third base. Moving to the outfield could also be in the cards as his arm would definitely play in right field, and there’s a chance he could still have enough speed to play center. He’s a plus runner now and losing a step wouldn’t take him out of the range of not having enough speed to play center.
There’s a ton of upside with Tyson Lewis. He’s not exactly close to the big leagues, which means he’s going to have some hurdles to get over. A lot of uncertainty remains, but it’s mostly about just how much he can get out of his potential and less about whether he can be a big leaguer in a few years.
Stats
Spray Chart
Video
Interesting Stat on Tyson Lewis
He only had 52 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers but he hit .130 and had just one double against them in 2025.