Bold reality: Sheng-En Lin is a top-20 prospect in the Reds’ system, and his story embodies the grit and complexity of a true two-way player. It’s rare for anyone in modern baseball to successfully pull off both pitching and hitting at a high level; the exclusive club has largely been limited to Shohei Ohtani, with very few others joining in contemporary times.
When you assess what Sheng-En Lin accomplished during the 2025 season within the Cincinnati Reds organization, you should view it through the perspective of a player who has been attempting to pitch and hit since he signed with the organization at 17.
The 2025 campaign brought a series of notable twists for Lin. First, he stopped playing as a position player mid-year after earning a promotion to Class-A Daytona in the Florida State League following a slump to a .172/.348/.310 batting line through three trips through the Arizona Complex League. Yet once he reached the Tortugas, he resumed pitching in actual games for the first time since signing with the Reds as an international free agent, and he hit the ground running with a 3.06 ERA and a 61/15 K/BB ratio over 47.0 innings.
In a single season, Lin shifted away from hitting for the first time, returned to pitching after a two-year hiatus, and earned a mid-season move to A-ball—despite the upheaval, he thrived. Now, with a renewed focus on pitching, there’s real optimism that he can regain the velocity he showed earlier in his career and continue to impress, as demonstrated during a brief but bright stint.
Sheng-En Lin stands as the #19 prospect in this year’s Community Prospect Rankings, a testament to how narrowly he edged out other contenders in the latest voting cycle.
