The Cincinnati Reds‘ farm system is flush with young pitchers right now. A quick look through my most recent prospect rankings and you’ll see that nine of the team’s top 15 prospects are pitchers.
Of those nine prospects, only one is a can’t-miss starter. That young man, Robert Stephenson, headlines the group of starters we’ll analyze in this piece.
The rest of the group—and even Stephenson at times—displays notable strengths and weaknesses, some of which will have a defining impact on their career paths as they trek through the minor leagues. Over the next few slides, we’ll look at the team’s top five pitchers—as determined by my rankings (linked above)—and take a look at their specific strengths and weaknesses as they appear in video study.
We’ll kick things off with a 22-year-old righty who is flat-out dominating older batters in the hitter friendly California league, Ben Lively.