Pipeline Q&As

Expectations for Reds top prospect Alfredo Duno were high coming off a 2025 season for which he was named the Florida State League MVP and was the organization’s Minor League Position Player of the Year. So far in ’26, the 20-year-old catcher has picked up right where he left off and was given Reds Minor League Player of the Month honors for May. Duno recently spoke with the Reds about his professional journey so far

Could you tell me a little bit about your childhood and how you fell in love with baseball during your youth?

My parents always took me to the stadium; I started playing when I was 3 years old and then as I got older, I took more it seriously and just really started to fall in love with playing the game more and more.

What were your thoughts and emotions when you signed with the Reds in 2023?

Since I took my first steps, my goal was always to become a professional baseball player, and I achieved it. That moment with my family was obviously special with all the progress that was made.

Is there any pressure that comes with being the Reds #1 prospect?

No. I never feel any pressure. I just try to play the game and enjoy it the best to my ability. Give it 100% no matter what, I’m always going to give it everything I have. There’s going to be good moments and there’s going to be bad moments, but being the number one prospect doesn’t make me better or worse.

How has the transition been living in the U.S. —specifically where you are now in Dayton, Ohio — and the differences from Venezuela?

It’s been a hard transition, but I have to thank the Reds staff and my teammates for making it a nice transition and little by little it keeps getting easier. I just have to take it day by day and keep taking strides.

In 2024 you broke your rib and a year later were named the Reds Minor League Player of the Year. What was it like to go through all of that?

It was a tough moment for me and my family. Of course you want to be out there and play and show what you can do, it’s just one of those things that is out of your control. But I was able to recover, and I just left it in the hands of God, kept working really hard to get back and had a good year the following season.

Reds Senior Director of International Scouting Trey Hendricks talks about how the organization approaches the international market, the scouting process, prospects to keep an eye on, and much more.

With how critical drafting and development is to the Reds’ organization, how does that importance extend to international signing classes that feature past and present top Reds’ prospects?

It’s crucial. We've got to invest in the right players and hope they develop into the players that we as a scouting group think that they can become. Certainly, some of the signees we've had since I've been here are getting up the line. That's encouraging to see and hopefully they'll be making an impact at the major league level within the next few years, depending on the class that they signed. For an organization like the Cincinnati Reds, it's [important]. We've got to draft and sign international prospects to the best of our ability and I'm excited about some of the guys that we've been able to bring in on the international side.

Outside of the top recent signees like Alfredo Duno and Adolfo Sanchez who land in the top 15 of Reds prospects, are there any players from past signing classes that you think deserve some recognition?

I think Leo Balcazar is one. He’s in Double-A now, he unfortunately had an injury and missed a year, but he's bounced back from that, and he's performed well this year. Once you're in Double-A, you're not that far away. You're one phone call away. So we’re proud of him and the work that he's done to get himself and his body back from the injury and he's an exciting player. Another one is Ricardo Cabrera, who unfortunately had another injury this year and missed the remainder of the season. He's an exciting player and I know he's going to work hard and get back to where he needs to be and hopefully, he continues to swing the bat the way he has so far. He's an exciting infielder in our mix. Another one is Esmith Pineda, who's in Daytona and has performed pretty well this year. He’s a corner outfielder still growing into his power and we think he's going to have big power someday.

When you’re comparing amateur scouting and international scouting, what’s the difference in evaluating talent?

I think the biggest difference is how early we have to evaluate the talent. They can sign their contracts when they're 16 years old, so we've got to start our evaluation process much sooner because a lot of times the players are committing to teams when they're 14 years old and it's just a much earlier scouting job than I think Joe [Katuska] and his crew must evaluate high school and college players. We're evaluating early teenagers, and I think that's the biggest difference.

With how wide a net that international scouting must cast, how do you and the scouts even begin the process?

We have scouts all over the world on the ground in the countries that [prospects] live in. We've got scouts in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, and then a lot smaller baseball pockets like Columbia or Panama. They identify the players that are the best players in their country, and they let us know with their scouting reports. The next step would be to get a crosschecker in to see the players. When the crosscheckers are going into countries, it's for a very targeted look. They're not going in blind and just hoping to stumble upon a good player. Our scouts that are on the ground in these countries do the early work and the legwork. That's when we start our process of building history with the players. Hopefully we can see them play games as much as possible, but a lot of times it's live workouts where we've got some pitchers throwing against them in a little bit less intense setting than a game. That's how the process starts. We’ve got a finite budget, so we can't sign every single player that we like, but we've got to make decisions between players that will end up with us or with other organizations. I'll come in and see maybe the best 15 or 20 in the Dominican Republic, the best 15 or 20 in Venezuela, the best five in Mexico, the best five in Asia and the best five in Europe. We kind of have meetings and talk about it and sometimes we're taken out of a player just due to the cost. Maybe we don't feel like that player is worth as much as his agent is asking for. That happens. Sometimes we value the player the same as the agent and that's the sweet spot where we can hopefully get a deal done and bring them into the Reds organization.

With how there’s been a run of years where some of the top major league signings are coming out of Asia, do you think the international market is expanding? Take Reds prospect Sheng-En Lin for example.

I wouldn't say it's really expanded. I think Sheng-En Lin was on our radar from when he entered high school. We started watching him and he was playing for Chinese Taipei national teams and various events and we were certainly following him through the years. It certainly wasn't a surprise when he's a senior in high school and ends up choosing us to sign with. He had offers from other major league teams and he had offers from NPB teams and I think that's where the relationship building came into play, particularly with him. We got in there and built a relationship with his family and Sheng-En Lin himself. So I wouldn't say that it's expanded. I think that every year the talent ebbs and flows and some years the talent is higher in certain countries and lower in other years. It’s about finding that sweet spot and building relationships and just starting the evaluation process as soon as we can so that we can build history with these players. I think the more history you have, the more information, the better decisions that we make. There are some countries that seem to be on the upswing as far as producing players. The Bahamas comes to mind. Sebastian Walcott, who's a top prospect of the Rangers is from the Bahamas. Jazz Chisholm who's with the Yankees. There are more on the way from that country. But for the most part, I would say it just kind of depends on the year and some years the talent is phenomenal in the Dominican Republic and it's a little bit lower in Venezuela and then the next class it will flip flop. It's like the draft, you talk to the amateur scouts and each year kind of ebbs and flows. Some years are high school heavy and college bats are light, or college arms are light. The next year it'll flip, and the college bats are exciting and the college arms and then the high school crop is not as exciting as it was the year before. You kind of take what's given to you and just make the best decisions that we can and that comes from information and doing the work and building relationships.

Previously, you’ve mentioned guys like ninth-rounder Kien Vu as a pick with "tremendous value." Are there any other selections from this class you feel are in the same boat?

Yeah, I think we got some value throughout the draft there. We had different ways of getting it. Mason Neville, our fourth rounder, was a player that we [originally] drafted out of high school. We’ve known him for a long time and have seen good progression from him. This is a kid who has tools, has physical ability and led the country in home runs at Oregon this year. We were surprised when he showed up in the fourth round. We think he's a real value pick. Then leaning into a little bit of the risk in the sixth and seventh round with [Braden] Osbolt and [Justin] Henschel. Those are two guys who we think are talented. Unfortunately, they both hit speed bumps when they had to have Tommy John after their fourth start or so. Our guys did a really good job of being on them early where we were able to scout them when they were still healthy and we think their talent fits significantly in front of the sixth or seventh round where we were able to get those guys.

When drafting, how much are you identifying and considering the needs of the future?

Our biggest focus as a staff is always the best player available. The holes in the system or at the big league level aren't really something we're concerned about. We just saw that with trading Sammy Stafura to the Pirates for Ke’Bryan Hayes. We’re getting talented players into the system; they can then get deployed in several different ways. [That can be] impacting the big league team themselves or if it's because they're a talented player and the 29 other organizations want them, and we can turn that into big league value. The key is not trying to focus on organizational needs or gaps anywhere but just trying to identify the best players and giving our staff the opportunity to get as many of those guys into the system as possible.

How do you and the scouting staff approach the pressure that comes with taking someone in the first round?

It's about listening to every person in the room and leaning on the work that we've done through the whole process. We spent a lot of time talking about that first pick, especially last year when we were picking at two. A lot of my time scouting throughout the spring was scouting that crop of players that we had identified that was going to be in the mix there. The guys probably get tired of talking about the players at a certain point in there because I try to hit it multiple times over the course of the week because of how important that pick is to the organization. You look at the percentage of the draft budget that goes to that first round player, the limited opportunities to get an impact player like that in the draft, we must have full conviction in that player that we do select. So, we talk about them a lot, listen to everyone in there, make sure that everyone gets their full unvarnished opinion out there and then we line them up and make the decision about who we're going to go after and target that selection.

With how some recent first round picks have been almost fast-tracked to the big leagues, what do you think it says about the caliber of the players that have been scouted by the team?
I think that it's going to be different for each player. We target up there. Since I started as the director four drafts ago, two of the picks have been super young. We’ve had high school players with Cam Collier and Steele Hall. [Guys like] Rhett Lowder and Chase Burns were much more polished. In our minds, we had different timelines projected for those guys. Again, it’s just leaning back on who we think is most talented in that position and then letting them develop at the pace that they show us that they can. Obviously the faster they get to the big leagues the better in our perspective, but we're not going to take just proximity to the major leagues as the driving force for our decision-making process there.

In your line of work, you’re looking at high school and college players. How do you know when it’s a weak year for one of those pools and stronger for the other?

We probably get an idea of that around the midway point of the college season where the traditional, high-volume high school areas have already started playing and are well into their seasons and we're halfway through the college season. We've had a pretty good chance to evaluate who the best players in the country are. You might get a little feel for it before that point, usually on the amateur side. It seems that the 2022 draft was high school top-heavy, so it was a very good draft for high school. It’s not surprising that the 2025 draft was a little bit down for college because those guys had already gone out of the player pool for us that we're looking at on the amateur side. So, you might have an inkling a couple of years out of what a class is going to look like. But really until you're scouting them in the spring, it's all about following reports. You're not locked in as much on those players. That spring of the draft is when you're really paying attention to everything and picking apart every little detail of the individual players and the class. You get an idea of what the strengths of the class are and what the weaknesses are. We just try to lean into the strengths in general and pick players from those pools, while understanding that it's going to be different every year.

What does draft day look like for the scouting staff? How does the team prepare for any surprises?
The draft day itself is interesting. It is the longest slowest day of the year until the draft starts and then it just feels like it's rapid fire. You're sprinting for the next four or five hours to get through however many picks there are on that day and things can start to move quickly. That's where we just have to lean on our preparation. We spend a lot of time putting our board together and lining those players up. We trust that process there so that we don't have to get into a situation where we're trying to decide between one player or another based on ability that's already been determined over the course of the week and the work we did. There are financial considerations that come in with expectations for players that might push us in a different direction where we might not be able to sign the player at the spot we are. In terms of picking the players and who we're targeting in those spots, we've done the work already. Generally, we feel prepared in that situation.

After the draft, then what happens? What comes next for the scouting department?

By the time the draft happens, we've already started on next year's class. Team USA for the college guys have already been played. The high school Team USA selection process has begun. This year, they already did their first camp after the draft last year. The timing of the world championships dictated that they did it beforehand. Depending on some of those summer schedules, we've already sent scouts out. They've covered the Cape Cod League, they've covered the draft league, they've covered team USA high school and college. For the people in the draft room, I keep them out of most of those scouting environments because they need to focus on the task at hand first and then move on. By Aug. 1, our whole staff is then back out on the road watching high school players for the next year's draft of the East Coast Pro and the area codes, we continue through August with a couple All America games. It slows down a little bit this time of year, at the end of August and early September when high school and college kids are going back to campus. Then we'll pick up through the fall, watch more high school events, watch more colleges through fall ball and really start working on the makeup of the players as well. We put a lot of emphasis on that in the off season to really figure out who these players are, what makes them tick and how they're going to fit in for us organizationally. It’s certainly not a part-time job or something. Just because the players aren't on the field doesn't mean we're not doing work throughout the calendar. We’re trying to put all the important things in line to figure out if this guy is one that we want to target or not. It never really stops.