Dragons 2022 Preview: Part 4--Shortstops

On Thursday, March 17, the Dayton Dragons and the other Cincinnati Reds minor league affiliates will open their spring training game schedule in preparation for the start of the 2022 season. The Dragons will begin their 22nd season on Friday, April 8th against the Fort Wayne TinCaps at 7:05 p.m. at Day Air Ballpark. Single-game ticket sales for Dragons 2022 games at Day Air Ballpark begin tomorrow (March 16) at daytondragons.com or by calling (937) 228-2287. (More on tickets here).

Each Reds minor league team will play a 16-game spring schedule against their corresponding team in the Cleveland farm system, from March 17-April 3. The Dragons will arrive in Dayton on April 4. All 16 Dragons spring games will be against Cleveland’s High-A club, the Lake County Captains, who also train in Goodyear.

This is part three of an eight-part series previewing the 2022 Dragons. Players listed here are candidates for positions on the Dragons season-opening roster.

This preview is an unofficial projection of possible roster candidates. Minor League rosters are not established until April 4. Spring training variables including performance, injuries, trades, and additional player acquisitions will impact the roster accordingly.

The Shortstops

Click links on each name for career stats and player information.

Candidates: Jose Torres

The shortstop position is well-stocked in the Reds organization at the present time, with more players at the position than available spots in the lineup. Barring injuries, multiple players who have been primarily shortstops will likely move to new positions in the infield in 2022 in an effort to generate playing time for each prospect.

In 2021, Miguel Hernandez opened the season as the Dragons starting shortstop and remained in that role into early August. Then Matt McLain, the Reds 2021 first round draft pick out of UCLA, arrived in Dayton as Hernandez was promoted to Double-A Chattanooga. McLain gradually took over an everyday role at shortstop with the Dragons as he shook off some rust from being inactive from the end of his college season at UCLA on June 6 until beginning his professional career about two months later. McLain alternated between shortstop and the designated hitter position for his first couple of weeks with the Dragons, and Ivan Johnson played shortstop on days when McLain was the DH. Johnson had served as the starting shortstop at Low-A Daytona for the first three months of the 2021 season and has been a shortstop his entire career. He moved to second base once McLain got fully up to speed with the Dragons as an everyday shortstop, and Johnson was profiled in our Dragons second base preview last week.

Meanwhile, Reds.com writer Mark Sheldon reported on March 7 that McLain would likely be slotted in as the shortstop in Chattanooga in 2022. That could lead to Hernandez moving to a new position, perhaps third base at Chattanooga, and it may keep Johnson at second base in Dayton or with Chattanooga. McLain, of course, is a huge prospect in the Reds organization, ranked among their top three in the farm system by most rating services, and Johnson is also an excellent prospect, rated #18 by mlb.com in a deep Reds chain.

When the 2021 season ended, there were two shortstops at Low-A Daytona, the club one level below the Dragons, and both are outstanding blue-chip prospects. It is possible that both players, Jose Torres and Elly de la Cruz, will move up to the Dragons in 2022, although de la Cruz, at age 20, could potentially start back at Daytona. Both players obviously cannot play shortstop for the same team, so if they both come to Dayton, one will move to another position. In that scenario, it would likely be de la Cruz who would move to third base. He will be profiled with the third basemen in our next preview. You could accurately say that the Reds have an abundance of riches at the shortstop position at the High-A and Double-A levels in their farm system at this time.

The Dragons had a long run of excellent shortstop prospects over about a decade starting in 2005, many of whom moved to different positions in the big leagues. That list included players like Todd Frazier, Billy Hamilton, Zack Cozart, Didi Gregorius, Paul Janish, Adam Rosales, Miguel Rojas, Chris Valaika, and Zach Vincej. Everyone on that list got to the major leagues.

Let’s take a look at the leading candidate at the shortstop position for the Dragons on April 8.

Jose Torres

Torres was frequently cited as the best defensive shortstop in all of college baseball as he entered the 2021 draft out of North Carolina State University. The Reds selected Torres in the third round of the draft and he was rated as the #12 prospect in the Reds system by Baseball America after the 2021 season. Along with his tremendous defensive skills, he hit better at Daytona than anyone could have expected after he signed with the Reds in 2021, and if he continues to build on that success, he will move up the prospect list even higher.

Torres was born in the Dominican Republic before attending Calvert Hall College High School (CHS) in Towson, Maryland. He was one of only 18 position players in the country to be selected to the 2018 17 & Under Perfect Game Tournament All-America Team (Dragons 2022 infielder candidate Tyler Callihan was another). Torres was rated by Perfect Game as the top high school prospect in the state of Maryland. He then spent two years at North Carolina State and earned First Team All-Atlantic Coast Conference in 2021, batting .289 with 10 home runs in 52 games as he helped Wolfpack to the semi-finals of College World Series and a final ranking of #4 in the nation. Torres belted a dramatic tie-breaking home run in the top of the ninth inning in the deciding game of the Super Regional to lift NC State to a 3-2 win over Arkansas and a trip to the CWS. By the time Torres entered the draft last July, he had already made a name for himself over a period of several years.

After signing with the Reds, Torres made a brief stopover in Arizona and joined the Daytona club on August 18, 2021. He hit safely in 19 of the 25 games he played in with Daytona finished with a batting average of .337 with four home runs in those 25 games. He was selected as the Low-A Southeast League Player of the Month for September, batting .404 in 16 games with nine extra base hits including two home runs, 14 RBI, and a .684 slugging percentage. He absolutely destroyed left-handed pitching at Daytona, hitting .615 with two home runs against lefties with an OPS of 2.014.

In terms of current expectations, Torres cannot match the first rounder, McLain, but with that kind of résumé, he surely is not far behind.

Several players could be candidates for utility roles with the Dragons in 2022. Reyny Reyes saw action in 2021 with the Dragons, appearing in 21 games and batting .233 while playing credible defense at all infield positions. He is a 23-year-old native of the Dominican Republic. Brandon Leyton played at Daytona in 2021 and batted .248 with six home runs in 80 games. Leyton, 23, is a native of Nicaragua. Gus Steiger was signed by the Reds in 2020 as an undrafted free agent out of South Dakota State. He played at Daytona in 2021 and batted .213 with one home run. He played seven different positions with the Tortugas last season.

Next up: Third Basemen

Part 1: Catchers: https://www.milb.com/dayton/news/dragons-2022-preview-part-1-catchers

Part 2: First Basemen: https://www.milb.com/dayton/news/dayton-dragons-2022-team-preview-part-2-the-first-basemen

Part 3: Second Basemen: https://www.milb.com/dayton/news/dragons-2022-preview-part-3-second-basemen

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