Reds fans stunned as FanGraphs keeps most undeserving player among top 100 prospects

FanGraphs' new top 100 prospect rankings have been released, and as expected, the Cincinnati Reds didn't get a ton of love. Teenage catching prospect Alfredo Duno came in at No. 20, making him the second-highest ranked backstop on the list behind Samuel Basallo (No. 4). Plus, Rhett Lowder stuck around at No. 79 despite missing the entire regular season due to injury.

There was one other Reds prospect representing the team on the list: Chase Petty. And that's not even the most confounding part — FanGraphs has him ranked all the way up at No. 52 overall. You certainly won't find any complaints here about the national media giving the Reds some flowers, but Petty is hardly worthy of that distinction after his disastrous 2025 campaign.

Petty made his highly-anticipated MLB debut in 2025, though it could not have gone worse. In three appearances (two starts), he surrendered 14 runs (13 earned) in just six innings, good for a 19.50 ERA. His 11.80 FIP and 3.67 WHIP were equally as calamitous. And, just for good measure, he allowed three home runs, and walked more batters (eight) than he struck out (seven).

Reds pitcher Chase Petty retains top 100 prospect status despite awful 2025 season

FanGraphs themselves "awarded" him with -0.3 fWAR for his work in the majors. That's hardly the sign of a top prospect. Of course, plenty of elite prospects have struggled in their first cup of coffee in the big leagues. That's nothing new. What is new is that Petty's struggles carried down to Triple-A Louisville.

In 26 starts covering 112⅔ innings with the Louisville Bats, Petty surrendered a 6.39 ERA and 1.61 WHIP. It was a continuation of a downward trend from 2024, when the right-hander logged a 4.20 ERA and 1.34 WHIP.

FanGraphs has always been the most positive outlet on Petty, who barely snuck onto MLB Pipeline's and Baseball America's Top 100 rankings (No. 98 overall) after his brilliant 2023 campaign. Still, their current ranking of him is simply a case of optimism for the sake of optimism, and it's clear his recent work has done nothing to merit his placement as a near-top-50 prospect in the sport.

The bright side of this is that Petty is still just 22 years old, and FanGraphs tends to value less traditional metrics when evaluating prospects. Their may be something in his profile that the analytics-first publication loves, though prospect guru Eric Longenhagen said nothing in the rankings to defend his placement of Petty.

At the end of the day, this doesn't change that Petty still has a ton to work on in order to succeed at the big league level. It is nice to see that someone still has a high opinion of him, though.