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Joe Boyle hasn’t had the opportunity to put up a ton of tangible, statistical work in his short professional career. The pandemic ate into a lot of what could have been for his 2020, while an injury set him on the shelf for much of the 2021 season, too.
Still, what we have seen of him paired with his work at Notre Dame has shown us one undeniable characteristic - he throws a baseball about as fast as anyone we’ve seen, and does so from a 6’7” frame that makes it feel like he’s letting it fly while standing on home plate.
It’s that potential that earned him enough votes to round out our Top 25 in this year’s Red Reporter Community Prospect Rankings. Congrats on the honor, Joe, and here’s to rocketing up this list by this time next year.
With the voting now in the books, here’s how said 2022 Red Reporter Community Prospect Rankings shook out:
- Hunter Greene
- Nick Lodolo
- Matt McLain
- Elly De La Cruz
- Graham Ashcraft
- Jay Allen
- Austin Hendrick
- Rece Hinds
- Christian Roa
- Tyler Callihan
- Andrew Abbott
- Bryce Bonnin
- Allan Cerda
- Mat Nelson
- Jose Torres
- TJ Friedl
- Mike Siani
- Ivan Johnson
- Ariel Almonte
- Daniel Vellojin
- Lyon Richardson
- Dauri Moreta
- Reiver Sanmartin
- Malvin Valdez
- Joe Boyle
Many thanks to those of you who provided your input to help shape the voting this year, and many more thanks to these prospects for baseball well enough to baseball their way onto our list.
Prospect rankings are always a bit nebulous, I should add, and our decision to consider Jose Barrero no longer a prospect due to his service time is one that some publications have also done, but there are admittedly others who have him ranked prominently as still a prospect. Safe to say we’re all still quite high on him, but that administrative decision is at least worth pointing out here. On top of that, this list began prior to the international signing window began, at which point the Reds added several prospects who would have figured into this exercise had they been part of the system when the rankings began.
The Cincinnati Reds farm has had more hype at times, and certainly had much less, but this is a pretty solid assembly of talent right now. It’s a good mix of MLB-ready and down-the-road, too, hopefully putting this franchise in a position to keep competitive for a run of years. (If, y’know, they opt to spend any money to help these guys out.)
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