Development Remains, but Cam Collier Is Getting Closer to Cincinnati

Some rough edges need to be smoothed out, but Cam Collier could be contributing to the Cincinnati Reds offense in the not-too-distant future. Assigned a 45 FV by Eric Longenhagen, the 21-year-old corner infielder is coming off of a 2025 campaign in which he put up a 123 wRC+ over 396 plate appearances across three levels (primarily Double-A). Among the few downsides was a dearth of dingers — he went yard just four times — but that presents as a blip as opposed to a barometer. Our lead prospect analyst grades Collier’s raw power as above average.

I broached the power outage when I talked to Collier during his stint in the Arizona Fall League, where he concluded his campaign with the Peoria Javelinas. He’d hammered 20 homers with the High-A Dayton Dragons in 2024, so why so few of them in his third full professional season?

“I’ve tried to not think about it too much,” replied Collier, whom the Reds drafted 18th overall in 2022 out of Chipola College. “This year, I wanted to really get back to being a hitter. I wanted to have consistent good at-bats, and while that didn’t produce as many homers, it produced a lot more base hits. I was happy with that.”

The stat sheet reflects some of his targeted strides. After batting .248 with a 25.0% strikeout rate in 2024, Collier improved to .279 with an only-incrementally-higher 26.3% K-rate against a higher level of competition. Moreover, the exit velocities he produced when he squared up the baseball were impressive — which remained the case in the desert. At 113.1 mph, Collier had the hardest-hit ball in the Fall Stars Game.

I had read reports that his exit velos and hard-hit rates were plus, so I brought that up as well. Was it perhaps a little counterintuitive that his slugging percentage (.384) and home run totals were as low as they were?

“Hey, that’s baseball,” shrugged Collier, who could have brought up, but didn’t, the hand/wrist issues that hampered him throughout 2025. (A torn thumb ligament in spring training required surgery and resulted in his not playing for a full-season affiliate until early May.) “Sometimes they won’t go out of the park, but if I’m putting good swings on the ball, good things are going to happen. I know that [home runs] will come in time.”

Reds general manager Brad Meador offered similar thoughts when asked about Collier’s offensive profile.

“When we drafted him, we thought he was just a good, pure hitter,” Meador told me during last month’s GM Meetings. “He was a young hitter, obviously, who we thought would grow into his power. I still feel that he has a chance to be a really good hitter, foul pole to foul pole. I think he is at his best when he is just focused on being a hitter. We’ll let the power come.”

Driving the ball in the air more consistently would help. Collier’s fly ball rate this year was just 30.5%, ranking him 25th among the 38 Cincinnati farmhands who came to the plate 300 or more times. Changes could be in order, and they could include tweaks to how he wields the lumber.

“My bat path and my swing have always been the same,” said Collier, whose left-handed stroke is conducive to crunching pitches down in the zone, but less so when offerings are elevated. “I might have fluctuated stances every once in a while, but I’ve always tried to keep the same path. The same mindset as well.”

That would be a mindset beyond what he’s looking for in the batter’s box. Collier expressed that he is all ears to feedback, which he gets on a regular basis. When I spoke to him in Arizona, he’d recently heard from Reds minor league hitting coordinator Tyler Henson, who had been diligently monitoring his progress. Hanson asked Collier if he knew what he had been doing wrong, and the youngster responded that he was probably leaking forward out of his backside, not allowing himself to stay balanced and through the ball. That’s precisely what it was. The following day, he went into the cage and worked on the needed correction.

Directionally, his 2025 spray chart was indicative of an all-fields approach. Collier was 38.0% pull, 33.2% oppo, and 28.8% center — the last of those areas of the field being his target.

“I’m always looking left-center to right-center,” he explained. “We call it the advertisement zone. The best way I can say it is that I try to hit the heater back through the middle, and then the breaking balls and soft stuff to the pull side.”

Which brings us to the side of the infield where he will ultimately spend the majority of his time. Exclusively a third baseman coming into the season, Collier started just 21 games at the hot corner, with another 50 coming at first base (he also served as a DH on 23 occasions). The positional distribution was more pronounced in the AFL: he was stationed at third base four times, and at first base 16 times.

Getting more comfortable across the diamond is a reason Collier played in Peoria.

“He had a hand injury at the end of spring training and missed the early part of part of the year, so we wanted him to get those extra at-bats,” Meador said. “But he is also learning a new position. That’s another part of it.”

A hard-hitting former first-rounder who made his major league debut on the first of September is also part of the equation. Selected 14 picks after Collier in the 2022 draft, Sal Stewart has likewise been a third baseman by trade.

“They kind of traveled together from affiliate to affiliate, so we started moving both of them,” Meador explained. “Sal was going from third to second, and Cam from third to first, so along with third base they could each have another position. We’ve done that with a few other guys over the last 5-10 years. Elly [De La Cruz] and Matt McLain came up as shortstops and were going to be reaching the big leagues around the same time, so we wanted them have at least a couple of positions that they were familiar with. When we feel that someone’s bat is ready, we don’t want to have to introduce him to a new position.”

So, just how close to ready is Collier?

“I wouldn’t look for him to break in this coming year, but you never know,” Meador said. “Guys move, and he can swing the bat, so we’ll see.”