2025 Community Prospect Rankings: Luke Holman is the Reds #14 prospect!

What will his debut professional season have in store?

After a pair of standout seasons for the University of Alabama, righthander Luke Holman took his talents to SEC rival Louisiana State for the 2024 season. While there, he refined his offerings and led all Tiger pitchers in IP (91.2), strikeouts (127), and WHIP (0.982).

That led to his selection in the 2nd round of the 2024 MLB Draft by the Cincinnati Reds.

He’s a strike thrower with command of the zone with three, maybe even four pitches already at this point, and though his fastball only sits in the low to mid 90s he manages to rack up the Ks with a wipeout slider.

He sure seems to have the makings of a fast mover within the Reds system, and we’ll get our first look at him as a pro when the 2025 season begins.

He’s the #14 prospect in this year’s Community Prospect Rankings according to you, the fine voters here at Red Reporter dot com.

On to the voting for spot #15!

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Carlos Jorge, 2B/OF - 21 years old

2024 at a glance: Hit .220/.292/.394 with 12 HR and 28 SB in 402 for the Dayton Dragons (High-A Midwest League)

Pros: Plus runner with more pop for his size than you’d expect; former full-time infielder has taken to OF (including CF) quite well in short order

Cons: K-rate has spiked since moving up from A to A+ ball while walk rate has plummeted

At his best, Carlos Jorge has shown a borderline five-tool potential. He slugged .483 across 86 games (355 PA) in the extreme pitcher-friendly confines of the Florida State League for Class A Daytona in 2023 while sporting an excellent 13.2% walk rate and .400 OBP. He swiped 28 bags while only being caught 4 times during his 2024 campaign with High-A Dayton. He came up as a shortstop, has ample experience and skill at 2B, and has adapted to CF with plus ability, too.

If he’d been able to put all of that together in one fell swoop, he’d have already cracked this list. Instead, he’s shown flashes of brilliance with each tool while also having serious issues maintaining it all at once. His most recent body of work in 2024 showed a brutal spike in his strikeouts (K% up to 31.1%) while his walk rate evaporated (down to just 7.7%), and his overall numbers fell dramatically, too.

He only turned 21 in September, however, and there’s ample time for him to turn things around once again. The upside here, though, is still pretty tremendous.

Yerlin Confidan, OF - 22 years old

2024 at a glance: .249/.343/.419 with 9 HR, 16 SB in 400 PA with Daytona Tortugas (Class-A Florida State League

Pros: Plenty of pop from the left-hand side of the plate, with plus speed and developing plate approach

Cons: Vulnerable vs. LHP, repeated at Daytona after struggling there (.612 OPS) in 2023

Confidan flashes the kind of power from the left side that few others can replicate within the Reds farm system, and at times has put it together in-game. During the 2021 season he raked for the ACL Reds, but struggled to replicate that during most of the 2022 and 2023 seasons - seasons that saw him reach Daytona and stall somewhat.

2024 was different, fortunately, and the in-game pop began to show up (28 doubles) despite being mired in the pitcher-friendly Florida State League.

It was a performance good enough to finally earn him a likely start with High-A Dayton to begin 2025, something that’s still right on-par with his age 22 season. If his bat speed and raw power continue to develop, he’s precisely the kind of toolsy corner OF prospect the Reds desperately need in their system.

Julian Aguiar, RHP - 24 years old

2024 at a glance: 6.25 ERA, 6.86 FIP, 1.33 WHIP in 31.2 IP for the Cincinnati Reds; 3.79 ERA, 1.21 WHIP in 116.1 IP split between Louisville Bats (AAA International League) and Chattanooga Lookouts (AA Southern League)

Pros: Strike-thrower who uses a sinker/slider mix; fastball that sits around 95 mph and a potential plus changeup

Cons: Will miss the 2025 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in late 2024

Aguiar was drafted in the 12th round of the 2021 MLB Draft by the Reds out of Cypress College (CA), a JUCO program that hasn’t exactly produced a ton of big league talent before (Rowan Wick, who caught for the Cubs for a time, and former outfielder Brandon Barnes are their best known products). He signed for just $125,000, never really sat on any top prospect lists prior to 2023, at which point he fired 125.0 IP of 2.95 ERA/1.10 WHIP work between Dayton and Daytona and firmly worked his way into the Reds pitching depth chart.

Solid enough work again in 2024 put him in line for a call-up in August when the Reds rotation was in tatters. While his numbers certainly were nothing to write home about there, he did flash some stuff that looked like it could get big league hitters out more often than not.

Problem is, it’s hard to discern just how much his stumbles before his season ended were due to the elbow troubles that eventually led him to Tommy John surgery. If he’s more effective at throwing strikes when his elbow’s in better shape, perhaps he’d have shown even more than we saw last. Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait another year to find out, as he’s likely in recovery-only mode for the entirety of 2025.

Ty Floyd, RHP - 23 years old

2024 at a glance: Did not pitch as he recovered from shoulder surgery

Pros: Rising fastball that commands the upper half of the strike zone; potentially above average slider

Cons: The aforementioned shoulder surgery means we’ve not seen him pitch in nearly two years

The Reds selected Floyd at the end of the 1st round of the 2023 MLB Draft (38th overall) out of LSU, doing so after he had joined Paul Skenes and Dylan Crews in leading the Tigers to the College World Series title. Along the way, Floyd fanned 17 Florida Gators in Game 1 of the MCWS, equaling the all-time single game record in the tournament.

When right, he can sit 95-96 mph with his rising fastball, and has a potential four-pitch mix to rely on. However, the shoulder injury and subsequent surgery means he’s still a complete unknown for both the Reds and we voters, and you’ve got to factor that in accordingly.

Hopefully he’ll be right again this spring and we’ll see his full arsenal on display.

Zach Maxwell, RHP - 24 years old

2024 at a glance: 3.17 ERA, 1.46 WHIP, 85/38 K/BB in 54.0 IP split between Louisville Bats (AAA International League) and Chattanooga Lookouts (AA Southern League)

Pros: Can literally throw a fastball through a brick wall (has been clocked at ~103 mph already); listed at 6’6” 275 lbs and makes Jumbo Diaz look like the Jonathan Broxton of Joel Kuhnels

Cons: Only on occasion does he actually find the strike zone; career 6.2 BB/9 as a pro, walked 98 (against 160 Ks) in 97.2 IP at the collegiate level for Georgia Tech

Maxwell throws just about as hard as anyone out there you’ll find, and does so as a big, intimidating presence on the mound. His combination of fastball/slider makes him almost the prototype high-leverage reliever, and the fact that he did the majority of his 2024 work at the AAA level means he’s on the cusp of getting his first shot at the big leagues.

The question with Zach, though, is whether he’ll ever throw enough strikes to make that elite arsenal actually work. As the old adage goes, if you know he can’t throw three balls over the plate in an at bat, there’s no reason to swing at any of his offerings.

(That’s an old adage, right?)

The good news is that he improved his K/BB to 2.53 in his first full pro season in 2023 after posting an absymal 1.63 mark with Georgia Tech, and at times he’s strung together long stretches of even more passable command. If he can harness that just the slightest bit more, he could slide right into the Reds bullpen mix as early as 2025 and be a flamethrowing force there.