Candidates for the 2022 Dayton Dragons opening night roster are in Goodyear, Arizona as competition continues for roster positions with the four Cincinnati Reds Full-Season affiliates. 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 are available at daytondragons.com or by calling (937) 228-2287

Each Reds minor league team will play a 16-game spring schedule against their corresponding team in the Cleveland farm system through April 3. The Dragons will arrive in Dayton on April 4.

This is part five 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 Third Basemen

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

Candidates: Elly de la Cruz, Nick Quintana

The third base position carries some degree of uncertainty with three weeks to go before the Dragons open their season, but some of the names in the mix are among the most talented prospects in the entire Reds farm system.

Just before spring training began, it seemed that power-hitting second round draft pick Rece Hinds would be first in line to handle the hot corner for the Dragons, but the Reds made a decision to move Hinds to the outfield. He will be profiled in our next preview. The next name on the list could be emerging phenom Elly de la Cruz, one of the fastest risers on prospect lists in all of baseball. De la Cruz came out of nowhere in 2021 to quickly become one of the top two or three position player prospects in the entire Reds system, and the accolades for de la Cruz continue to come in, non-stop. But every farm director has decisions to make on how quickly to advance young prospects through the system, and de la Cruz’s opening day landing spot could be High-A Dayton or Low-A Daytona. Beyond that, it is not even a certainty that de la Cruz will play third base in 2022; his primary position has been shortstop, but that is an overloaded spot in the Reds system at the present time, and the 6’5” de la Cruz would seem to be a player that could slide over, as he did at times in 2021.

The Dragons third basemen last season were Victor Ruiz and Juan Martinez. Ruiz has been released, and Martinez would hope to make the roster at Double-A Chattanooga. Let’s take a closer look at the candidates for third base with the Dragons on April 8.

Elly de la Cruz

On July 8, 2021, I had a conversation with a scout who had gotten a long look at some of the youngest players in the Reds system as they worked in extended spring training in Goodyear, Arizona. I asked him to identify the best prospect at the Reds extended spring camp in Goodyear, a group of mostly anonymous names, but players that I always try my best to stay familiar with. He immediately threw out a name that I did not know.

“Elly de la Cruz,”, said the scout. “He is not on anyone’s radar yet. He is a six-foot-five, five-tool, switch-hitting shortstop, 19 years old, and they are playing him at second base because the shortstop there got big money to sign. This kid got next to nothing. He might be the best prospect in the entire Reds organization.”

The last sentence there caused me to smile because of its apparent absurdity, at least at that time. From year to year, players sometimes move up and down the prospect lists, maybe 10 spots in a year, and in rare cases, a little more. But no one ever jumps from not being mentioned on anyone’s top 30 list to being number one. It does not happen. Lesser-known players do sometimes erupt for big seasons, but in those cases, if the player was completely off the landscape of the prospect lists, the big season would likely get him added to the lists, but not jumped to the top. Prospect lists are based on tools. A player’s tools do not change that much from year to year, at least not normally. Who on earth was Elly de la Cruz?

In the present tense, de la Cruz, a complete no-name a year ago, entered spring training this year ranked by Baseball America as the Reds fourth best prospect, behind Hunter Greene, Nick Lodolo, and Matt McLain, all former first round draft picks. The same publication named him the Reds farm system’s “Best Athlete” and “Fastest Baserunner.” With respect to the scout’s claim of de la Cruz being the Reds best prospect, it should be noted that McLain had not yet been drafted when the scout made the comment, and Greene and Lodolo are both pitchers. So in terms of position players, well, de la Cruz would actually be #1 among those prospects who were in the organization as of early July of last year.

De la Cruz signed with the Reds out of the Dominican Republic as a 16-year-old in 2018. He did not play in a professional game that summer. The next year, he appeared in 43 games for the Reds club in the Dominican Summer League, batting .285 with one home run. There was no season in 2020, so de la Cruz arrived in Arizona last spring as a 19-yer-old with 47 career hits, all in the Dominican Republic. It was not a lot for scouts to go on.

Following extended spring training, where players who did not make the roster of any of the Reds four full-season affiliates spend the early part of the summer, de la Cruz was assigned to the Arizona Complex League Reds, a team in a league that plays on the backfields of the MLB spring training facilities without many fans in attendance. Admission is not charged at ACL games. The ACL Reds opened their season on June 28, and it did not take de la Cruz long to make his mark. He went 5 for 5 with a home run and two doubles in his third game and followed that by going 5 for 10 over the next two games. After just 11 games with the ACL Reds, he was promoted to Daytona with a batting average of .400 and a .780 slugging percentage. At the end of the minor league season, Baseball America named de la Cruz as the top prospect in the Arizona Complex League despite the fact that he had played in only 11 games in that league.

De la Cruz hit .348 in his first five games with Daytona before finishing at .269. Between the two clubs he played for in 2021, he hit a combined.296 with eight home runs and 35 extra base hits (.538 slugging percentage) in 265 plate appearances. He started 34 games at third base and 23 at shortstop overall in 2021. He was named the sixth best prospect in the Low-A Southeast League with Daytona despite arriving very late in the season.

Baseball America had this to say: “No Reds prospect has a higher ceiling than de la Cruz…He is a plus-plus runner with a plus-plus arm and plus-plus raw power…He has a shot to hit in the middle of (an MLB) lineup while also playing a premium defensive position.”

Will de la Cruz open the 2022 season as the Dragons third baseman? It is possible. He is still just 20 years old and has played in only 50 games at the full-season level. If he does not start the year in Dayton, he should get here eventually in 2022. When he comes to Dayton, the baseball world will be watching.

Nick Quintana

Quintana was acquired by the Reds in the trade that sent former Dragons catcher Tucker Barnhart to the Tigers on November 3, 2021. Quintana had been a second round pick by the Tigers in 2019 out of the University of Arizona, where he enjoyed a big career with the Wildcats. He has struggled in two seasons in the Tigers system but hopes that the change of scenery to the Reds organization will trigger a turnaround for him.

Quintana was a tremendous player at Arbor View High School in Las Vegas. He was selected as the Nevada high school player of the year as a senior in 2016 after playing for USA Baseball’s Under 18 national team in 2015, winning the Baseball World Cup in Japan as he started 12 of the team’s 14 games (former Dragons pitcher Hunter Greene was also on the team). He went on to the University of Arizona where he spent three years and earned numerous awards. He started all 58 games as a freshman to earn Freshman All-American honors, batting .293 with six home runs. He was selected First Team All-PAC 12 in both sophomore and junior seasons. He hit .313 with 14 home runs in 2018 and then improved to .342 with 15 homers in 2019, leading the conference in RBI and posting a slugging percentage of .626 to earn Second Team All-American honors. He finished his college career with 35 home runs, fourth most in school history.

Quintana was never able to get on track in the Tigers organization. In 2019, he batted .158 with West Michigan in 41 games before the 2020 season was cancelled due to COVID. He spent most of the 2021 season with Detroit’s Low-A affiliate at Lakeland, getting off to a dreadful start by batting .115 with one home run in his first 39 games, then improving in the second half starting July 3, batting .265 in 43 games with eight home runs and an OPS of .857. He finished at .196 with nine homers. His strong finish and his enormous amateur success offer promise that Quintana has talent that can emerge in 2022.

Next up: Outfielders

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

Part 4: Shortstops: https://www.milb.com/dayton/news/dragons-2022-preview-part-4-shortstops

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