Dayton Dragons 2026 Team Preview: Part 3--The Second Basemen
MWL Dayton Dragons

Dayton Dragons 2026 Team Preview: Part 3--The Second Basemen

Published on March 12, 2026 under Midwest League (MWL)
Dayton Dragons News Release


Dayton Dragons second baseman Peyton Stovall
Dayton Dragons second baseman Peyton Stovall
(Dayton Dragons)

Dayton Dragons spring training games are underway this week in Goodyear, Arizona and throughout the greater Phoenix area. Games will continue through March 29 before rosters are set for opening night throughout the Cincinnati Reds system.

It was nice to see a lineup card for the first day of games (see attachment), although readers should not place much importance in the specific team assignments this early in spring training. As the Reds continue to trim their roster toward the opening day limit of 26 players, there is a "trickle down" effect on the minor league rosters. The Reds still have 42 players in Major League camp, so there will potentially be up to 16 players reassigned to the rosters of Reds farm clubs in the coming days, bumping an equal number of players down a level on the organizational ladder.

The Dragons annual home "Opening Night" game is set for Tuesday, April 7 against the Lake County Captains at 7:05 pm at Day Air Ballpark. The Dragons will officially open their season on the road a few days earlier, on April 2 against the Lansing Lugnuts in Lansing, Michigan.

This is part three of an eight-part series previewing the 2026 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 March 31. Spring training variables including performance, injuries, trades, and additional player acquisitions will impact the roster accordingly.

For Dragons season ticket, group ticket, or single-game ticket information, go to daytondragons.com/tickets or call (937) 228-2287.

The Second Basemen

Candidates: Peyton Stovall, Victor Acosta, Bernard Moon

Peyton Stovall endured a frustrating 2025 season, plagued by multiple injuries that probably limited his effectiveness more than expected. He finally demonstrated his skills late in the season when he was fully healthy and was a key contributor in the Dragons record-setting 15-game winning streak.

Stovall, 23, was a Reds top-30 prospect when the 2025 season began after a highly-decorated college career at the University of Arkansas. The Reds picked Stovall in the fourth round of the 2024 draft. At Arkansas, Stovall was an ABCA/Rawlings Third Team All-American in 2024 as a junior when he batted .340 with nine home runs in 48 games, posting an OPS of .944. He was also selected as Second Team All-Southeastern Conference, the top college baseball conference in America.

But the jump from even the top levels of college baseball to the High-A Midwest League is a steep one. When the Dragons 2025 season began, Stovall was on the team's injured list after he was hurt in spring training. He missed the first nine games before joining the club on April 15. Stovall played in just 11 games before going back on the injured list in early May, and this time, he remained out of action for more than a month. He rejoined the Dragons on June 10 but struggled to find any rhythm at the plate. When the Dragons took the field on August 17, the day they started their long winning streak, Stovall's batting average stood at a disappointing .147 in 52 games with no home runs.

As the Dragons started winning, Stovall came alive and was one of their biggest contributors over the remaining weeks of the season. As the Dragons went 18-1 over their final 19 games, Stovall batted .313 over that period with his first three home runs of the year. His OPS over those final 19 Dragons games was .957, third best in the league. During those final 19 games, Stovall also ranked third in the league in RBI (16), second in extra base hits (10), tied for second in runs scored (17), tied for third in doubles (7), tied for fourth in stolen bases (8), and fourth in slugging percentage (.552). Many of his hits were dramatic. On back-to-back days on August 21 and 22, Stovall drove in the winning runs in walk-off Dayton wins.

For all the things the Dragons did well during their club-record 15-game winning streak, the longest winning streak in the Midwest League in decades, Stovall was the team's best hitter during the streak. But his struggles up to August 17 kept his final batting average under .200 at .191 in 69 games. If Stovall returns to the Dragons and picks up where he left off in 2025, he will be one of the Midwest League's best hitters.

Victor Acosta has spent the last two seasons with the Dragons, playing in 195 games with the Dayton club. Acosta improved his batting average by 39 points from 2024 to 2025, but he still has room for improvement, finishing the '25 campaign at .225 with one home run. The Reds saw plenty of potential in Acosta when he was acquired at the trade deadline from the Padres in 2022 in exchange for major leaguer Brandon Drury, who was having an excellent year with Cincinnati. He began that 2022 season ranked as the Padres #11 prospect (MLB.com).

Acosta, 21, did not finish the 2025 season with the Dragons, going on the temporarily inactive list on August 8 for reasons that were kept in house, and missing the final month. He never returned to the team after departing in 2025 but is back with the organization in spring training this year. Acosta started at second base in the Dragons first spring training game earlier this week, with Stovall starting at second on the same day for Double-A Chattanooga (see second paragraph of this preview related to trickle down effect as cuts are made at the top level). Acosta provides good versatility on defense. In 2025 with the Dragons, he started 42 games at second base, 22 at shortstop, and 17 at third base.

Bernard Moon is the youngest of the candidates who could be in contention to play second base for the Dragons in 2026. Moon, 20, was a draft pick that has become somewhat of a rarity in recent years, a player selected out of high school after the fifth round who agrees to terms and begins his professional career rather than move on to the college level. Moon was taken in the 16 th round by the Reds in 2023 out of Redan High School in Georgia, the same school that produced former Reds all-star second baseman Brandon Phillips.

Moon is a close friend of former Dragons infielder Cam Collier. The two players came out of opposite corners of the Atlanta metro area, and both were originally part of the high school class of 2023. It might say something about how quickly Collier has advanced for his age as he took an unconventional path to the draft and got to the Dragons in 2024, before he turned 20 years old, and finished the 2025 season in Double-A with Chattanooga. Moon has moved up steadily in the Reds organization, spending 2024 with the Arizona Complex League Reds (Rookie level) and 2025 with Daytona (Single-A). Moon hit .304 with a pair of home runs in 47 games in the ACL in '24 and then hit .236 with seven homers at Daytona in 2025, posting an OPS of .689. Note that league average in batting average in the league he played in (Florida State League) was .234 in 2025 and the average OPS was .691, so Moon was a league-average hitter last season at Daytona. He also added 17 stolen bases.

Moon finished third in the Florida State League in doubles and fourth in extra base hits last season, mostly hitting either fifth or sixth in the Tortugas batting order. If Moon does not make the Dragons roster out of spring training, he would be a strong candidate to move up to Dayton later in the year.

Next up: Shortstops

See the Dragons Catcher preview here: https://www.milb.com/dayton/news/dayton-dragons-2026-team-preview-part-1-the-catchers

See the Dragons First Basemen preview here: https://www.milb.com/dayton/news/dragons-2026-team-preview-part-2-the-first-basemen

Check out the Dayton Dragons Statistics

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Images from this story

Dayton Dragons second baseman Peyton Stovall
Dayton Dragons second baseman Peyton Stovall
   



Midwest League Stories from March 12, 2026


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