Last Updated on August 26, 2025 1:38 pm by Paul Williamson | Published: August 26, 2025

With less than a week to go in August, this marks our final Dynasty Diamond prior to the loosening of call-up rules in September – as well as our penultimate edition for the season! Though we’re closer than ever to the finish line, suggesting that players’ values are set in stone at this point would be foolish. Many of the games’ top prospects in years passed have made a name for themselves in the fall months by using their advanced abilities to take advantage of lesser competition that may be running on fumes after the grind of a full season, solidifying the fact that they stand a cut above the rest of their competitors. On the flip side, we’ll sometimes see an unsustainable hot streak from players in the mid-to-lower echelons that can trick us into believing that one month of superb play outweighs the months of results that came before it.

In other words, it’s an incredibly low-floor/high-ceiling endeavor – just like prospect hunting as a whole usually is! The sport never sleeps and neither should we.

Away we go!

The usual preamble;

This article will come out every two weeks, highlighting the ten most noteworthy performances for MiLB players during that window. The players discussed will come from a mix of levels (Triple-A, Single-A, etc.) and because of that, I will attempt to contextualize their statistics for both the quality of competition, as well as the player’s own age, to the best of my abilities. In other words, a 25-year old slugger going on a home run binge isn’t going to get my attention if they’re facing off against a 20-year-old pitcher on a daily basis. On the other hand, an 18-year-old holding their own against more advanced pitching is going to skyrocket them towards the top of the rankings very quickly.

Since we could go as deep into the minors as the Complex and Dominican Summer Leagues, this is intended as more of a companion article for deep dynasty leagues, as opposed to those that shallow enough to essentially just focus on players listed on Top 100 lists. This is more for the sickos who want to be able to brag about having the next Jesus Made or Jung Hoo Lee on their roster more than five years before they make their MLB debut.

That said, there’s a chance some of our mining leads to some true diamonds in the rough emerging – just look to what Kristian Campbell did last year for example. So with that in mind, I will have a specific section of each article that focuses on how the upper echelon of prospects is performing, in addition to geeking out over the future wave of breakout stars. And as we go through the season, I’ll denote each player written about as one of three categories;

Golden 🥇 (the best of the best)

Gems 💎 (exciting up-and-comers)

Unrefined ⚒ (has tools of interest)

As the weeks go by, I’ll track each player and how many times they appear in the article under each category in a chart at the bottom. Hopefully by year’s end we’ll then have rough ranking of the most interesting players from each tier as a guideline that you can then use for your own dynasty purposes!

Statistics are up to date as of August 25th.

Alfredo Duno – C – CIN 🥇

Last 14 Days: .412/.524/.941 – 5HR/0SB – .637 wOBA – .529 ISO – 279 wRC+ (AA)

Season: .284/.426/.496 – 14HR/5SB – .437 wOBA – .212 ISO – 159 wRC+ (A+/AA)

Maybe it’s just Cal Raleigh and his ginormous dumper that’s top of mind across the baseball world but it seems the “hitting catcher” archetype is having a bit of a renaissance after a lengthy run where the focus on a backstop’s contributions came on defense. It may not be a direct result of the change but it seems that since the automatic balls/strikes (ABS) system was introduced to the minor leagues, teams have seen the writing on the wall for elite pitchframers, meaning that catchers will eventually need to find new ways to impact the game – like with their bat, for example.

For Alfredo Duno, his calling card is most definitely his stick. Though a net-negative on defense, Duno is surprisingly agile and athletic for a 6’2″, 210lbs catcher, which has allowed the Reds to forecast the position as his future defensive home despite his struggles behind the plate. Usually players with this type of profile are eventually moved off of catcher as they ascend through the minors but because of the aforementioned rule changes expected in the not-too-distant future, the chances of Duno sticking are getting more likely by the day.

It’s hard to overstate how much of a boon to his fantasy value it would be to stick at catcher, as scouts and projection systems alike are pegging Duno as a future 30-home run threat, with enough motor to chip in a handful of swipes each season as well. To peg him as a 30-homer type means he projects as future top-five option at the position, even if things turn out quite as hoped and he ends up being more in the Mike Zunino profile, where above-average power goes hand-in-hand with struggles in the batting average department. But here’s the exciting part; his plate discipline is starting to trend towards being an asset for him;

A 71.2% contact rate is admittedly not the most eye-popping number on its own but the year-over-year improvements, combined with his ability to work free passes while running a 1:1 ratio with strikeouts is incredibly impressive for a player who is still five months from his 20th birthday. Oftentimes, a catcher’s ranking on traditional prospect lists is buoyed because of how valuable the position itself is, rather than their particular skill level. I’m here to tell you to reverse that thought process in the case of Duno – his bat makes him a potential top-25 prospect hitter regardless of the role he plays on the team.

Sal Stewart – 3B – CIN 💎

Last 14 Days: .341/.444/.773 – 5HR/1SB – .503 wOBA – .432 ISO – 205 wRC+ (AAA)

Season: .311/.383/.526 – 19HR/17SB – .415 wOBA – .215 ISO – 152 wRC+ (AA/AAA)

I hopped on the Sal Stewart wagon in the most recent Dynasty Diamond article and man, did I time that perfectly or what?

Over the past two weeks, it’d be hard to argue that anyone has had a better performance than Stewart, with the Reds farmhand contributing more than 25% of his season-long home run total over just 14 days. When I wrote about him last, I said the following;

While he doesn’t carry any future tool that projects to come out of the development wash as plus, Stewart has a well-balanced, if unexciting, profile and is shaping up to at very least provide a reasonable on-base percentage, even if his slugging ability lags a little behind, as he’s maintained excellent contact metrics throughout every one his stops in the minors.

It’s funny how much can change in such a short span of time, as it seems I clearly sold Stewart somewhat short in my tepid praise. Now the holder of a .331 ISO at Triple-A, Stewart is showing that his game power could come in a shade above his raw outputs in large part because of his excellent contact metrics. Even though his rate dropped from 81.2% at Double-A to 76.2% post-promotion, that’s still a strong enough number to perhaps boost his hit tool from a 45 in scouts’ eyes to around league-average at 50 – or even slightly above at 55.

Throw in the fact that his power will get to play up even further due to the tight confines of Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati – a famously home run friendly venue – and suddenly Stewart has gone from an afterthought to a Top-80 fantasy prospect. I feel like this is the profile of Alec Bohm, if he played in a more favorable park while actually living up to his batted ball metrics. That’s a pretty valuable piece considering only 12 qualified third basemen have a wRC+ above league average as of this writing!

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Jeff Clowers

• "The Dynasty Diamond": August 26th
• Working The Waiver Wire: August 22nd
• Working The Waiver Wire: August 15th