Look at Leo Balcazar running away with the vote for spot #13 in this year\u2019s edition of the Community Prospect Rankings!<\/p>\n
Perhaps that\u2019s an indictment of which prospects I included in this particular round of voting. Or, perhaps it\u2019s an indication that you fine voters here at Red Reporter are awfully high on Balcazar\u2019s prospects as, well, a prospect once again.<\/p>\n
There was a time when that was something of a no-brainer. He mauled Dominican Summer League play with an .882 OPS in 2021 at just 17 years of age, and he backed it up the following year with an equally impressive .886 OPS in Arizona Complex League play in his first season in the states. Then, in a 19 game sample to begin the 2023 season with Class-A Daytona in the pitching-friendly Florida State League, he roared out of the gate with an .897 OPS only to tear his ACL and miss the remainder of the year.<\/p>\n
When he returned in 2024, he was a shell of his former self. He\u2019d been an athletic shortstop whose quickness helped make up for an average arm, but his quickness had been sapped. His work at the plate slumped, too, and suddenly there was wonder whether he\u2019d be able to work his way back.<\/p>\n
2025 was a much more positive step in the right direction. He posted a modest .720 OPS as he reached AA Chattanooga, but the athleticism began to return – as did some of the excellent exit velocities off his bat. He finished the year with a positive showing in 24 Arizona Fall League games, and he still won\u2019t even turn 22 until this summer.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s beginning to be some buzz again about Balcazar, and I think it\u2019s warranted, even if he\u2019s destined to stick at 2B long term.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the #13 prospect in this year\u2019s CPR!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Look at Leo Balcazar running away with the vote for spot #13 in this year\u2019s edition of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,535,50,4259,67081,4,536],"class_list":{"0":"post-546926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cincinnati-reds","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cincinnati","10":"tag-cincinnati-reds","11":"tag-cincinnatireds","12":"tag-community-prospect-rankings","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-reds"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115987270120152984","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}