Shortstop had been identified last year at this time as a position of need, but after a brief pursuit of former Red Didi Gregorius, who ended up signing with the Phillies, the team stood pat, entering the year with Freddy Galvis as its starter. If you read other team’s boards this dynamic is pretty consistent (and of course natural as we are all mostly irrational homers).Whoever it is in charge of building the Cincinnati Reds going forward, one of that person’s first orders of business will be to address the shortstop position. All that being said, I find it entertaining to watch fans over estimate their own prospects whilst grasping for the other teams best talent. I think what has been most frustrating recently is they do not appear to have a visible or consistent approach and without one the Reds (and most importantly we the fans) will be left floundering with no clear path to true contention. At some point the Reds need to pick a strategy and stick with it- are they going to be the Rays (below MLB average payroll all the time), try to stretch into the upper tertile by spending more than proportionally than other small markets or something else. Another problem with my DLC example is that his window for the MLB is not that far behind the Reds other position prospects like McClain and Barrero and actually ahead of Hinds and Hendrick etc. Yes the imbalance in MLB between the small markets and large markets is imo a big reason the gap in popularity between MLB and the NFL/NBA is growing. Those more interested in upside are likely to be higher on Phillips than those who are looking at his walk rate and seeing a little bit of a lower floor as a result of that. Phillips has plenty of stuff, and he’s pitched very well at times in High-A Dayton and Double-A Chattanooga. Phillips ranking as a Top 60 prospect in the game, or ranking as the 8th best prospect in the organization certainly reflects how at times there can be a wide variety on opinions with some players. If we remove the players ahead of him who aren’t eligible for the Baseball Prospectus list he would still only rank 8th. That list had Connor Phillips ranked 12th. Baseball America updated their organizational Top 30 prospects yesterday. There’s no write up for him because he was in that “the next ten” section, but his inclusion certainly makes things interesting. He was acquired in the trade with the Seattle Mariners as the player to be named later. While De La Cruz was the only prospect from the Reds organization on the Top 50 list, coming in at #56 on the list was Connor Phillips. There are 5-tool players, then there’s what Elly De La Cruz is. And he’s also capable of playing a quality shortstop. Of course the insane amount of power he has already at 20-years-old is not all he brings to the table. There have been multiple home runs hit this season by De La Cruz that looked like they were destined to by opposite field dying quails that somehow, like magic, wound up over the fence in the outfield as he slowly trotted around the bases. The first sentence of the write up on Elly De La Cruz says it all: His bat is magic. Over the weekend he will be in Los Angeles playing in the Futures Game along with Andrew Abbott. He’s the only player in minor league baseball with at least 20 home runs and 20 steals this season. De La Cruz has played 72 games this season in High-A with the Dayton Dragons. He’s continued that this season and more. That is the shortstops highest ranking so far in his career.Īfter bursting onto the prospect scene unlike just anyone in recent memory, going from unknown in the Reds farm system to a top 100 prospect in all of baseball in the matter of three months. Elly De La Cruz comes in on the list at #9 overall. The second one is that they actually listed 60 players – but only the top 50 have write ups, while the last 10 players simply are listed as “the next 10” and in that group was a second Cincinnati Reds prospect. The first is that no one currently in the big leagues is eligible for their list even if they still retain prospect eligibility (such as Nick Lodolo). Only one Cincinnati Reds prospect made the list, but with two caveats. #CINCINNATI REDS SHORTSTOP UPDATE#The crew over at Baseball Prospectus unveiled their midseason Top 50 update on Wednesday.
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