Photo: Doug Gray
It is prospect ranking season and this past week has seen three major publications unveil their Top 100 prospects list. Baseball America published their list on Wednesday, MLB Pipeline published their list on Friday, and The Athletic published their list on Monday. Time to add another list to the bunch as ESPN dropped their list this morning, featuring three Cincinnati Reds players among the top 100.
As it has been with the other lists, infielder Sal Stewart is the highest rated prospect from the Reds organization. Kiley McDaniel, the lead prospect writer for ESPN, ranked Stewart as the 17th best prospect in baseball. That’s the highest ranking for the infielder so far. Players ranked in the top 20 for McDaniel also featured full scouting grades with their writeup. For Stewart, he gets above-average to plus grades in his future hit and power tools, while being graded out as an average thrower. Both his speed and fielding grades are a little below-average. For Stewart, even when he was drafted the selling point was always about the bat. While just how well he would field could be debated a little bit, everyone agreed and still does that if he’s going to make a difference on the field it’s going to be from the batters box.
Alfredo Duno isn’t far behind Stewart on this list. The catcher comes in at #29 overall and McDaniel describes him as a “middle linebacker build with massive power, strong approach and traits to stick as a catcher.” His ranking here is also the highest he’s had this offseason.
We’ve talked about it before but it is worth repeating – Duno won the Single-A Florida State League’s Most Valuable Player award in 2025. He hit .287/.430/.518 for Daytona while playing in 113 games. He led the league in doubles, home runs, runs scored, RBI, walks, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. He finished second in both batting average and hits. Duno did that while being a catcher and a teenager who walked more often than he struck out. He was an offensive juggernaut in 2025. Known for his power, he didn’t disappoint as in his first full season he crushed the ball and he projects for plus-plus power down the line.
Quite a bit down the list you’ll find the final Cincinnati player that cracked the top 100. Rhett Lowder showed up as the #72 prospect in the top 100. The right-handed starter missed the entire year due to an elbow injury that was followed up by an oblique injury, and a shoulder issue caused him to miss his final rehab start in Triple-A to end the season. He wound up pitching five rehab games in two different stints but never made it off of the injured list before the season came to a close. He did pitch in four games in the Arizona Fall League after the regular season was over and seemed to be healthy.
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