The Cubs front office sure was busy on Monday.
Not counting the Jameson Taillon deal, who was the subtraction of a player who had already been designated for assignment, the Cubs added five major leaguers in four separate trades. This cost the Cubs seven minor league players, six of whom still had prospect eligibility.
Because five of those six players were among my Top 25 prospects mid-season update, it’s probably time to update that as well. But before I do that, I wanted to give a summary of the
players the Cubs lost.
Pretty much all of the position players the Cubs dealt were “blocked” at the major league level. Take infielder Jefferson Rojas, whom I had ranked as the Cubs No. 2 prospect. I’m very high on Rojas. He’s a 21-year-old succeeding in Double-A. I think he has the upside of a quality major league starter. I don’t think Rojas is a shortstop, but he could be an above-average defender at second or third base. He could be a guy who hits .265 with around 20 home runs and 20 steals.
But the Cubs already have a second and a third baseman under contract for the next several seasons and even if Hoerner or Bregman falter, Rojas has been surpassed in the organization by Pedro Ramírez. Then there’s Matt Shaw, who would also rank higher than Rojas. Did the Cubs get full value back for Rojas in two rental players? Maybe not, but they got 90 cents on the dollar. Plus, the Cubs had to trade Rojas sooner rather than later. His value wasn’t likely to increase until he could prove himself on the major league level, something he was very unlikely to get in Chicago. Players in the bottom half of Top 100 prospects lists generally only pan out as good major leaguers about a third of the time, anyway.
Would I have liked to get a controllable starter back for Rojas? Definitely, but there was only one real controllable starter dealt (José Soriano) and he went for a whole lot more than Jefferson Rojas. The Cubs got arguably the second-best available rental starting pitcher in Clay Holmes for him, plus a rental outfielder in Tyrone Taylor who has crushed lefties this year.
Then there’s Moisés Ballesteros, who went along with Mason McGwire for a controllable pitcher, albeit a reliever in Ryan Zeferjahn. Despite his slump from May that got him sent down to the minors, I still believe in Mo Baller’s left-handed bat. It’s a sweet stroke and he loves to dump line drives into the left-center and right-center gaps. His post-April struggles were real as he was hitting the ball into the ground way too much and was not able to pull those inside pitches like he had been previously. But I’m confident he’ll figure things out eventually.
But like Rojas, where was Ballesteros going to play on the Cubs? He’s simply not a good defensive catcher and I don’t think he ever will be. For a while he was improving, but that’s plateaued. He has not gotten any better down in Iowa this year. And if he’s not a catcher, what is he? At 5’8”, you need a lot of infielders with very accurate arms to play him at first. If he has to DH, he’s a guy who hits .280 with a .340 OBP and 20 home runs and 35 doubles. Is that good enough for a full-time DH? Maybe. Maybe not. And that’s close to a best-case scenario.
Ballesteros has also been passed in the Cubs organization by the development of Owen Ayers, who is someone who really can stay behind the plate. That’s another reason Mo Baller was expendable.
Jonathon Long, who went to the Marlins for a controllable starter (albeit one who’s in the minor leagues) in Braxton Garrett, is similarly blocked. He can maybe give you a few games in left field, but he’s a first baseman with 55 power. Like Ballesteros, that’s more like 15-to-20 home runs a year than 30 or more. His hit tool is at least average, but he’s also right-handed and all other things being equal, teams prefer a left-handed first baseman. Long was never going to push Michael Busch off of first base, so the Cubs might as well deal him now. If Garrett returns to what he was before Tommy John surgery, then the Cubs got a great deal.
Right-hander Jace Beck was a guy the Cubs signed as a minor league free agent over the winter after he was released from the Mets organization. I don’t know what the Cubs did to him, but he started striking out a ton of batters in Double-A Knoxville, which got him on some prospect lists. He hasn’t repeated that success since his promotion to Iowa, but it’s still a small sample size. Beck combines a mid-90s fastball with a solid splitter. Unless he can improve his slider, he’s probably a reliever. But the Cubs did great to sign someone over the winter for a minor-league salary and then flip him in a deal for a controllable starter like Garrett.
As far as the other players the Cubs traded before the Deadline, right-hander Mason McGwire is better known for his father than his pitching right now, but he has turned himself into a real prospect, which he definitely didn’t look like his first two years in the organization. He missed all of 2025 with an injury and when he returned this year, his curveball had a much better shape and he had much better control of it. Despite having a starting pitcher’s frame, I think McGwire is destined for the bullpen unless he can find a new pitch to get lefties out. My biggest regret on trading McGwire is that his father vowed to come to Wrigley Field in Cubs gear if he made the majors and that would have made Cardinals fans’ heads explode. I don’t think they’ll mind him in Angels gear.
The Blue Jays have a type, apparently, as they got two very similar profiles in Brett Bateman and Ty Southisene. Both are short, high-contact guys with close to zero power and plus speed. They are both good defenders. They’re also both Asian-American, which is probably just a coincidence but some commenters on the Blue Jays board were very excited about that. Their lack of power, and the fact that Southisene probably isn’t a pure shortstop although he can play there, means both are likely bench players in the major leagues, if they even make it there.
So that’s what the Cubs have lost. What does their farm system look like now? It’s down, of course. You don’t lose one of your Top 100 prospects without taking a hit in the rankings. But Rojas was the only player the Cubs dealt who was among my Top Ten Cubs prospects in the mid-season update, although Ballesteros would have clearly also been in the top ten if he still had prospect eligibility. He’d probably rank fourth, just behind the emerging Ayers.
So here is my updated list of the Cubs top 25 prospects. New players on the list are in boldface.
- Josiah Hartshorn OF/1B
- Owen Ayers C
- Kane Kepley OF
- Cade Townsend RHP
- Jaxon Wiggins RHP
- Kaleb Wing RHP
- Ethan Conrad OF
- Caden Sorrell OF
- James Triantos 2B/OF
- Myles Bailey 1B
- Brooks Caple RHP
- Dominick Reid RHP
- Juan Cabada 2B
- Jose Escobar 2B/LF
- Grant Kipp RHP
- Jostin Florentino RHP
- Carson Jasa RHP
- Derniche Valdez SS
- Nazier Mulé RHP
- Will Sanders RHP
- Pierce Coppola LHP
- Luis Martinez-Gomez RHP
- Logan Poteet C
- Angel Cepeda SS
- Brody McCullough RHP
Valdez is an interesting case and I moved him up to 18 because he was a highly-regarded international signing who just didn’t hit his first three years in the system and dropped off of all prospect lists. However, a little over a month ago, Valdez got glasses and since then he’s been tearing the cover off the ball. So if the reason he couldn’t hit was that he couldn’t see, then he becomes an interesting prospect again. We still have to wait a bit to see that this isn’t just a fluke, but it’s a promising development.
Martinez-Gomez is a fastball/splitter pitcher who has taken a step forward with his control this year, which was what was keeping him off of prospect lists before. There’s a lot of reliever risk here, but there’s also some back-end starter potential.
Poteet makes the list because he’s hit 18 home runs this year and has the defensive skills to stick behind the plate. There are, however, some major hit tool questions as Poteet has been striking out at a 37 percent clip since his promotion to High-A South Bend. He has to cut that down to be a major leaguer.
Cepeda is someone who has made some strides in pitch selection this year, which has led to more walks and fewer strikeouts. He still has a long ways to go in that department, but his plus glove at short will buy him the time to work on that.
McCullough doesn’t have much that wows you, but he’s got a starter’s body and a starter’s arsenal and the chance to be a back-end starter. He missed all of last year with elbow surgery, but he’s back now and putting in a solid performance with Double-A.
