Edwin Arroyo returned to the playing field for the 2025 season with AA Chattanooga after his 2024 season was lost to a shoulder injury (and subsequent surgery), and the results were more or less what you’d expect to see from a talented player with that kind of rust. On the whole, he hit .284/.345/.371 with only a trio dingers on the season, but it wasn’t until the 44th game he played (on June 11th) when he finally launched one.
From that point until season’s end, he hit .296/.356/.402 with an 8.0% walk rate and minuscule 13.0% strikeout rate, and all that came from a guy whose work defensively has long been lauded as MLB-ready at the most important spot on the diamond. That’s precisely the kind of player who found himself all over Top 100 overall prospect lists prior to his injury, and it’s worth pointing out that he just did all that in his age-21 season at the AA level.
There’s still a ton to love about Arroyo, and clearly you all thought the same. He takes home the #5 spot in this year’s Community Prospect Rankings because of it, as you voted him there with nearly 35% of the vote despite a crowded six-person ballot.
I doubt Arroyo ever morphs into a 20 homer kind of offensive player, but if he keeps that K-rate so tiny you can barely see it, he’s got a hit tool and patience at the plate that could see him hit .280 with a .340 OBP at the big league level. That paired with pretty elite defense at shortstop is a very, very valuable player.
It’s hard not to look at the current state of the big league Reds roster and not think they’ve got Arroyo firmly in mind in the near term, too. He’s got the glove to rotate in at both 2B and SS, and his ability to switch-hit means he can provide another lefty bat in the lineup when needed. Given that they a) cut Santiago Espinal to leave the short a middle-infield defender and b) traded away Gavin Lux to remove a lefty bat from the 2B mix, Arroyo hitting his way from AAA Louisville into the regular Reds rotation at some point in early 2026 sure does sound like a feasible proposition.
That’s your #5 prospect!
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