Dayton Dragons 2026 Team Preview, Part 4--The Shortstops
MWL Dayton Dragons

Dayton Dragons 2026 Team Preview, Part 4--The Shortstops

Published on March 16, 2026 under Midwest League (MWL)
Dayton Dragons News Release


Dayton Dragons shortstop Carlos Sanchez
Dayton Dragons shortstop Carlos Sanchez
(Dayton Dragons)

The Dayton 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 four 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 Shortstops

Candidates: Tyson Lewis, Carlos Sanchez, Alexander Vargas

Traditionally, the percentage of Dragons shortstops who have gone on to careers in the Major Leagues has been higher than any other position on the field. Some of those Dayton shortstops eventually moved to different positions, but the list of players who played shortstop for the Dragons before reaching the big leagues in some capacity is impressive. How about this group: Todd Frazier, Zack Cozart, Billy Hamilton, Didi Gregorius, Miguel Rojas, Paul Janish, Adam Rosales, Chris Valaika, Alex Blandino, Jose Barrero, Jeter Downs, Rey Olmedo, and current Reds Elly De La Cruz, Matt McLain, and Noelvi Marte. That's 15 Dayton shortstops in the team's 25-year history who advanced to the Major Leagues.

This year's collection of potential Dayton shortstops is another super-exciting group that promises to bring some thrills to Day Air Ballpark.

Tyson Lewis, just 20 years old, 6'2", 195 lbs, is one of the top prospects in the entire Reds organization, ranked in the top five on almost every list. The current Baseball America Reds top-30 list has Lewis ranked as the Reds fourth best prospect, behind only former Dragon Sal Stewart, likely 2026 Dragon Alfredo Duno, and former Dragon Rhett Lowder. The question with Lewis is whether he will start the 2026 season in Dayton or Daytona (he spent less than two months with Daytona last season in his only career action at the full-season level). If he does begin the year back in the Florida State League, he will almost certainly reach the Gem City at some point later in the season. Lewis has had some impressive moments in Reds major league spring training games this year and the excitement he has generated might impact the decision on where to send him to start the regular season.

The Reds selected Lewis in the second round of the 2024 draft out of Millard West High School in Omaha, Nebraska, where he earned the Gatorade Nebraska High School Player of the Year award and carried his team to a state championship. He was the highest-drafted position player ever to be selected out of the state of Nebraska.

Lewis reportedly received a signing bonus of more than $3 million to sign with the Reds, passing on earlier intentions to play at the University of Arkansas. He did not see any game action in 2024 after signing his contract with the Reds, mostly due to the odd scheduling that has evolved over the last few years in which the Rookie-level Arizona Complex League concludes its season about a week after the draft, too early in the summer for most drafted players to report to camp and get into a game before the season officially closes.

So Lewis waited a year to begin his professional career, beginning the 2025 season with the Goodyear Reds in the ACL. He wasted no time in announcing his presence with authority as a top-level prospect. In his first professional plate appearance, he ripped a 110 mph line drive for a base hit. In his second at-bat, Lewis delivered a hit that was recorded at 119 mph, estimated as the second hardest hit ball by any minor league or major league player in the Reds organization since the advent of the current data-gathering era (the hardest was a 120 mph home run by Elly De La Cruz while with the Reds in 2023). Lewis blasted his first professional home run in his second pro game. After the first seven games of his professional career, his batting average stood at .440 (11 for 25).

At the end of the ACL season, Lewis was at .340 with six home runs in 46 games. His OPS was .928. He was the Reds Minor League Player of the Month for July, 2025, and was selected as a full-season all-star in the Arizona Complex League. But his season was not over.

When the ACL season ended in July, the Reds promoted Lewis one level on the organizational ladder, to Daytona of the Florida State League, where he played out the remainder of the season and into the FSL playoffs. Lewis appeared in 35 games with Daytona, almost all of it against older competition, and batted .268 with three home runs. Combining his production between the two teams in 2025, Lewis played in 81 games (corresponding to about 60 percent of one full season), and batted .311 with nine home runs, 54 RBI, 31 extra base hits, and 21 stolen bases.

This spring, Lewis has had 10 plate appearances in major league spring training games for the Reds. He rocketed a home run in his fourth big league spring game, a ball that recorded an exit velocity of 109.9 mph and traveled an estimated 439 feet. He has gone 5 for 10 (.500) in MLB spring games in 2026.

Baseball America had this to say about Lewis as he entered the 2026 season: "As productive as Lewis was in his pro debut, the Reds are excited about what he might yet become. He is a long, lean, lefthanded hitter with plenty of room to fill out further, but he already hits the ball exceptionally hard...He has the kind of power potential the Reds have lacked in recent years."

The Baseball America scouting grades for Lewis are well above major league average in power, speed, and arm strength from the shortstop position.

Lewis might start the 2026 regular season with the Dragons, but that is not a guarantee, in light of the fact that he played in only 35 games at Daytona last season and could return to the Tortugas for more seasoning. The situation feels a little like the decision on young 20-year-old Elly De La Cruz in the spring of 2022, when De La Cruz had, like Lewis, started the previous year with the ACL Reds and finished it with the Daytona Tortugas. Elly had played in 50 games at Daytona that previous year, and the decision was made to go ahead and bump him on to the Dragons to start the 2022 season, a decision that eventually proved to be the correct one (for sure!). We will wait until March 31 to learn the starting point for Lewis for 2026.

Carlos Sanchez is a top-30 prospect in the Reds organization who played in 56 games for the Dragons in 2025 and showed impressive skills. Sanchez's natural position is shortstop, but he also plays third base and the Reds have recently given him some looks in center field.

Baseball America currently lists Sanchez as the Reds #27 prospect, a credible ranking considering they have about 160-170 minor league players in the organization. Sanchez is only 21 years old and has good size for an infielder at 6'2", 205 lbs.

Sanchez originally signed with the Reds out of the Dominican Republic in 2022 and progressed to the point of opening the 2025 season with Single-A Daytona, where he appeared in 60 games and batted .308 with four home runs and 13 stolen bases. He was among the league leaders in numerous categories (including second in the FSL in batting average) when he was promoted to the Dragons on June 24. With the Dragons, Sanchez batted .244 with four home runs in 56 games. Sanchez has shown the skills to take a big step forward in 2026 with the Dragons and climb up the Reds prospect list.

Alexander Vargas is the oldest and most polished prospect in this shortstop preview at age 24. He was signed by the New York Yankees as a very highly-regarded international prospect in 2019. He spent several years in the Yankees system and at times was ranked as top-10 prospect for the Yanks. He reached the Double-A level first in 2024 and then again in '25, appearing in a total of 115 Double-A games. He did not develop as a hitter the way the Yankees had hoped and they released him in August of 2025. The Reds quickly signed Vargas as a free agent and assigned him to the Dragons, where he quite simply changed their season.

Vargas joined the Dragons just as the team started what turned out to be a club-record 15-game winning streak, and the arrival of Vargas was clearly related in a big way to the winning streak. In his three weeks with the Dragons, as the club posted an amazing record of 18-1, Vargas played the best defensive at shortstop I have ever seen in my 19 years with the Dayton club, and that is not a small level of credit considering the past presence of players like Zack Cozart and Miguel Rojas. Pitchers commented on the impact of Vargas, not only because of the incredible plays he made at shortstop, but also because of the confidence he gave those pitchers, knowing that plays would be made behind them if they threw strikes and challenged the hitters.

Vargas was an absolute Wizard at shortstop in his time with Dragons, leading observers to comment about how high his value as a player would soar if he could just hit a little. With a career batting average of only .225, the Reds hope their minor league hitting coaches can create some magic that the Yankees could not with Vargas' bat, and if they can, they will have a future major league player on their hands. Notably, Vargas started today's major league exhibition game for the Reds against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Maybe some of those same skills he showed in Dayton last season will be on display for manager Terry Francona and the big league team.

Next up: Third Basemen

Check out the Dayton Dragons Statistics

Share: Facebook | Twitter/X | LinkedIn | Reddit | Email



Images from this story

Dayton Dragons shortstop Carlos Sanchez
Dayton Dragons shortstop Carlos Sanchez
   



Midwest League Stories from March 16, 2026


The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.

OurSports Central