While the World Series ended the Major League Baseball season, professional baseball is a year-round sport. Before the World Series is over several fall and winter leagues around the world get started. The Australian Baseball League, also known as the Australian Winter League, is the last of the well-known and covered leagues to get started. But they are in week two of their season now and a surprise trio of Cincinnati Reds prospects have been showing off down under so far.
When it comes to fall and winter league baseball, the league in Australia is the lowest one when it comes to the talent on the field. Australia just doesn’t have the same level of overall talent as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico, or Venezuela. There are some talented players in the league, even some with big league experience, but there are also some players who don’t play professionally anywhere else but Australia. The league also tends to skew a bit younger, with some guys even playing at ages as young as 15-years-old (like Travis Bazzanna, last year’s #1 overall draft pick out of Oregon State, who made it into three games with Sydney in 2018 as a 15-year-old).
Like the other foreign winter leagues, there are roster requirements about how many players from the host country has to have, but they are also allowed to have players from outside of the country. The league’s official website reports those…. or at least some of them. I was keeping tabs on their signing page for six week before the start of the season and the only Reds player signed or announced on a roster was Australian Drew Davies.
But despite not being shown as signed or on the roster the day before the start of the season, three of the youngest players in the Cincinnati farm system started playing with the Sydney Blue Sox. All three players spent their 2025 season with the Dominican Summer League Reds and then came over to the United States in late July to join the club in Arizona for the instructional league. Now outfielder Pablo Nunez, infielder Hansel Jimenez, and catcher Jirvin Morillo are in Australia and all are out to a great start.
Let’s start with Hansel Jimenez. The 18-year-old hit .269/.374/.445 with 12 steals in 35 games this past summer for the DSL Reds. He’s played seven games, all as the Blue Sox shortstop, and has gone 7-27. While that’s just a .259 batting average so far, he’s had a double and two home runs in that time. That’s tied for the league lead with three other players. Those other three players are 24, 26, and 27-years-old.
Catcher Jirvin Morillo has only played in four games with Sydney thus far, but he’s made those four games count. He’s gone 6-15 with a double, triple, and a home run. That’s led to him hitting .400/.438/.800 for the Blue Sox. The 18-year-old is coming off of a regular season with the DSL Reds where he played in 33 games and hit .259/.381/.431 with 23 walks and 25 strikeouts.
Outfielder Pablo Nunez had one of the more impressive stats you’re going to see this past season with the DSL Reds. The just turned 19-year-old had 41 walks and just six strikeouts in 36 games played this season. He hit .327 and he stole 16 bases. His on-base percentage was .542 thanks to those 41 walks and an additions nine hit by pitches. Nunez didn’t show much power as he had just four doubles, a triple, and a home run – leading to a slugging percentage of .413.
In Australia he’s now played in seven games and he has gone 10-25 (.400). He’s walked five times, but he’s also struck out five times in his 30 trips to the plate. Nunez has picked up two doubles along the way. And he also showed off in the field the other day, throwing out a runner at the plate by a nautical mile.
