Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago Cubs. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Power Bats, Dicey Contact
Haydn McGeary, 1B
Felix Stevens, 1B/OF
Andy Garriola, OF
Anderson Suriel, OF
Ivan Brethowr, OF
A small school catcher, McGeary’s pro career was shot out of a cannon, as he hit 19 homers in 2023 and put up some of the more impressive exit velos in the minors. In 2024, he struck out 31% of the time and slugged .354. He needs to return to the 23%-ish strikeout area. Stevens is an enormously strong 25-year-old Cuban first baseman who has also posted some of the loudest peak exit velocities in all of pro baseball, but he’s striking out at a 34% clip in the mid-minors. Garriola is a 25-year-old outfielder from Old Dominion who hit 18 bombs in 90 A-ball games before he was promoted to High-A in August. Suriel is a medium-framed corner outfield prospect with above-average bat speed. He’s taken forever to exit rookie ball, but he’s developed pretty big power during that time. Brethowr (who transferred from ASU to UCSB) is a 6-foot-6 power-hitting right fielder who had 28 bombs in 112 college games.
Wild Guys With Monster Stuff
JP Wheat, RHP
Sam Thoresen, RHP
Jose Romero, RHP
Wheat, 22, is a 6-foot-5 low-ish slot righty who sits 96 and flashes a huge slider. He had 36 walks in 22.1 innings last year. A 2020 undrafted free agent out of Minnesota, Thoresen sits 95 with above-average carry and flashes a plus upper-80s slider, but he has 20 or 30 control and walked almost a batter per inning in 2024. Romero is a 5-foot-10, 185 pound righty with a 94 mph fastball and a plus sweeper. He walked nearly a batter per inning at High-A last year.
Raiders of the Lost Park (Indy Ball Signees)
Nico Zeglin, RHP
Connor Schultz, RHP
Zeglin, 24, began his college career at a JUCO, then went to Gonzaga, and finally landed at Long Beach State, where he had a sub-1.00 WHIP as a starter during his senior year, but still went undrafted. Zeglin immediately went to the Pioneer League, where he played for the Rocky Mountain Vibes, man. He signed with the Cubs in 2024 and pitched really well, posting a 0.33 ERA as a High-A reliever during the second half of the season. He sits about 91 and has an excellent changeup. Schultz, 25, spent four years at Butler, one at Iowa, and then parts of three seasons with the Missoula PaddleHeads, also of the Pioneer League. He signed with the Cubs in 2024 and dominated A-ball for 30 innings, mostly with a good changeup of his own.
Still Developing
Erian Rodriguez, RHP
Yovanny Cabrera, RHP
Thomas Mangus, RHP
Daniel Avitia, RHP
The 23-year-old Rodriguez, who much like Daniel Espino was born in Panama but went to high school in Georgia, was a 2021 Day Three pick out of Georgia Premier Academy. He has a statuesque 6-foot-3 frame and will bump 95-96, albeit with ineffective movement. He moved into the rotation during the second half of 2024 and began working more with his secondary stuff. Both his slider and changeup are about average and improving. Even though he’s 23, Erian is a pretty good developmental prospect who might break late.
Cabrera is a 23-year-old Dominican righty who is on the relief prospect fringe. He sat 93-96 in 2024 and has an occasionally good curveball. His command was better at the very end of the year and if he can sustain that in 2025, we might be talking about a quick-moving middle inning guy. Mangus signed for a little over $200,000 out of Navarro JC in Texas rather than head to Oklahoma. He’s a well-built righty with a long arm swing, plus-plus fastball spin (but below-average velocity), and a potentially good slider. Avitia is a low three-quarters slot right-hander out of Grand Canyon who the Cubs gave $150,000 to in the 12th round. He works with a fastball/changeup combo. His heater sits in the low-90s with running action, while his low-80s changeup, which he shows advanced overall feel for, has significant fade and depth to it.
Young, High-Variance Bats
Robin Ortiz, OF
Jose Escobar, 2B
Angel Cepeda, SS
Ludwing Espinoza, SS
Ortiz is a huge-framed 18-year-old outfield prospect at 6-foot-4. He has above-average raw power already and didn’t strike out a concerning amount in his pro debut. Escobar is the next Pedro Ramirez or perhaps Yonathan Perlaza type. He’s a compact second base grinder, advanced for his age and wielding a potential 50/40 hit/power combo. Cepeda is the toolsiest of this bunch, a 6-foot-1 Dominican SS/3B who slashed .298/.383/.428 on the complex. He has looming strikeout issues keeping him off the main section of the list. Espinoza was a $1 million signee who has yet to post an average DSL line in two seasons there.
System Overview
The Cubs have made some high-profile moves at the midway point of the offseason, but their farm system hasn’t changed a ton. The Kyle Tucker trade cost them 2024 first round pick Cam Smith, who would have ranked fourth on this list and whose scouting report you can find here. As the system stands right now, it’s a shade below average in terms of both depth and high-end impact. Their drop relative to our 2024 in-season assessment mostly comes from rounding down on Moises Ballesteros and Owen Caissie, who were both Top 100 prospects in the recent past, and who both now look more like good role players than foundational guys you build around.
The core of this system, and the place where potential foundational pieces lurk, is in all of those young shortstops littered through the bottom third of the list. The early returns on those $3-4 million international amateur shortstops aren’t great, but their defensive ability and bat speed give them the potential to make an eventual leap. The same is true of Ty Southisense, Ronny Cruz, and a more mature Derniche Valdez. In each of these players’ individual cases you can see why the Cubs gave them as much money as they did, though the priciest three (Cristian Hernandez, Fernando Cruz, and Valdez) are the ones struggling the most right now. Eriandys Ramon (big gap) and Yahil Melendez have the best chance to leap into the overall Top 100 over the course of the next two years.
There has been quite a bit of electronic ink devoted to the Cubs’ investment in tech and dev infrastructure to try to better develop pitchers. There really isn’t much evidence of progress on that end in their system right now. Injuries or regression are a big part of the write-up for all but a couple pitchers on this entire list. Birdsell, Noland, and Neely (who isn’t homegrown) are basically ready, but everyone else has to prove they can stay healthy, throw strikes, or both.
