Trio of Reds are playing well in the Australian Winter League – Redleg Nation

While the World Series concluded the Major League Baseball season, professional baseball is a year-round sport. Before the World Series is over, several fall and winter competitions begin around the world. The Australian Baseball League, also known as the Australian Winter League, is the last of the well-known and indoor leagues to start. But they’re now in week two of their season and a surprising trio of Cincinnati Reds prospects have shown off so far.

When it comes to fall and winter league baseball, the league in Australia is the lowest when it comes to talent on the field. Australia just doesn’t have the same level of talent as the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Mexico or Venezuela. There are some talented players in the league, even some with big league experience, but there are also some players who don’t play professionally anywhere else but Australia. The league also tends to skew a bit younger, with some guys even playing at age 15 (like Travis Bazzanna, last year’s No. 1 overall draft pick out of Oregon State, who played three games with Sydney as a 15-year-old in 2018).

As with the other foreign winter leagues, there are roster requirements about how many players must be from the host country, but they can also have players from outside the country. The league’s official website reports this…. or at least some of them. I kept an eye on their signing page six weeks before the start of the season and the only Reds player signed or announced to a roster was Australian Drew Davies.

But despite not being signed or shown on the roster the day before the start of the season, three of the youngest players in Cincinnati’s farm system started playing with the Sydney Blue Sox. All three players spent their 2025 season with the Dominican Summer League Reds and then came to the United States in late July to join the Arizona club for the instructional league. Outfielder Pablo Nunez, infielder Hansel Jimenez and catcher Jirvin Morillo are now in Australia and are all off to a great start.

Let’s start with Hans Jimenez. The 18-year-old hit .269/.374/.445 with 12 steals in 35 games for the DSL Reds last summer. He played seven games, all as shortstop for the Blue Sox, going 7-27. While that’s only a .259 batting average so far, he’s had a double and two home runs in that time. That is tied with three other players in the league. The other three players are 24, 26 and 27 years old.

Catcher Jirvin Morillo has only played in four games for Sydney so far, but he has made those four games count. He has gone 6-15 with a double, triple and a home run. That led to him hitting .400/.438/.800 for the Blue Sox. The 18-year-old is coming off a regular season with the DSL Reds, where he played in 33 games and hit .259/.381/.431 with 23 walks and 25 strikeouts.

Outfielder Pablo Nunez had one of the most impressive stats you will see with the DSL Reds this past season. The just turned 19-year-old had 41 walks and only six strikeouts in 36 games played this season. He hit .327 and stole 16 bases. His on-base percentage was .542 thanks to those 41 walks and nine hit by pitches. Nunez didn’t show much power as he had just four doubles, a triple and a home run, leading to a slugging percentage of .413.

In Australia he now played in seven games and went 10-25 (.400). He walked five times, but also struck out five times in his thirty trips to the plate. Nunez has picked up two doubles along the way. And recently he also showed up in the field, throwing a runner to the plate from a nautical mile away.