It’s been a slow, albeit steady rise for Alfredo Duno up the list of top prospects within the Cincinnati Reds system, something that’s not at all atypical for young catching prospects.
Heck, as of the start of the 2025 Daytona Tortugas season, he wasn’t technically even a ‘catcher’ in the most pure sense of the term – he’d never once started a game stateside at the position as a professional. After signing for $3.1 million as one of the top prospects in the international signing window in 2023, he spent
45 games impressing most everyone around him in the Dominican Summer League, but injuries (and cautious kid gloves on the part of the Reds) meant that he only DH’d for Daytona upon arrival in the states for the 2024 season.
It was up and down for him that season in the extreme pitcher-friendly environment of the Florida State League, though at just 18 years old he posted an impressive .367 OBP even though the purported power in his bat didn’t exactly show out.
Everything changed in 2025, however. Duno got behind the plate for 81 of his 113 games with the Tortugas, blasted 18 dingers as part of an overall .287/.430/.518 (.948) line, his dingers and OPS leading all hitters within that league. He represented the Reds in the MLB Futures Game during All-Star weekend, to the top of the prospect rankings within the Reds system (aided by the graduation of Chase Burns and pending graduations of Rhett Lowder and Sal Stewart), and even began cracking Top 100 overall lists.
To some, he’s even the future top catching prospect in the game – he is, after all, still just 19 years old.
It was announced on Wednesday that Duno will be part of the Cincinnati Reds contingent playing in the prestigious Arizona Fall League, too, in yet another feather in his already full 2025 cap. He’ll be joined by former 1st rounder Cam Collier, infielder Leo Balcazar, and pitchers Trevor Kuncl, Johnathan Harmon, and Luke Hayden.
The six-pack will ply their respective trades for the Peoria Javelinas, with play set to begin on October 6th.
The Reds haven’t shied away from using the AFL not only to push their better prospects into competition with those of other franchises, but also as a way to help build up game experience for players coming off time missed due to major injuries. Edwin Arroyo, Matt McLain, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand (remember him?) are recent examples of such strategy, and Duno (his 2024 DHing already mentioned), Collier (a busted thumb in spring training that required surgery and cost him months), and Balcazar (missed almost all of 2023 recovering from ACL surgery) all fit that same bill.
Each of Duno (#3), Collier (#6), Balcazar (#23), and Hayden (#30) rank among the Top 30 prospects in the system according to MLB Pipeline.
