Farm to Field Cubs: Top 10 Cubs Prospects for 2024 2025 | Brotherly Cubs Podcast Today

Intro give superpowers to Nick madreal I think he's needs all in stat so I feel like if anyone needs the superpowers it'd probably be Nick one two swinging a drive toward Right Center back goes Robert back near the stands that b is gone a game-winning home run for Chris Morel can you believe it listen to this crowd welcome to the brotherly Cubs podcast I am John and this is my brother Zach we are your brothers who love everything Cubs baseball if you enjoy talking about the Cubs then hit that subscribe button turn on the notifications and join us every week as we dive into the ins and outs of the best team in the National League the Chicago Cubs today at breakfast uh Kayla told me daddy why do you look like that I was like what and she's like why why do you look like that and I was just kind of like you mean like this right here my my face and everything he's like yeah you're why are you bald and was just like I don't know it's I know it's not the most appealing thing baby but um I'm working on it so now I'm just I'm hitting the gym you know thanks to my daughter I'm in a Biggest Loser competition and uh again again already in you know another one but I'm in it again so I'm all self-conscious now about how I look and all that so I'm like man is have I had too much too much sugar today I don't know how do I look according to my four-year-old daughter so daddy why you know Ryan Gosling yeah just I was just like y I'm sorry I I'm trying my best okay why don't you look like the people on TV yeah that might be what she's thinking we like to start off each podcast with a playful question for all of our 17 subscribers feel free to put your answer in the comments today Zach I asked you if the Cubs players had superpowers what powers do you think they would have and which player would make the best superhero this is a tricky question because they're all superheroes in my heart uh it might be the most you know flamboyant question ioy statement I can make I think Cody Bellinger could fly or maybe PCA could fly that dude's fast he's an 80 grade he's an 80 grade defense but I think he's an 80 grade speed or something like that but I think Cody Bellinger would fly because I don't know if you know about the Cubs celebration they did this year um where they got on base and they go like what was it I think they went like they did that and they also did something else like this right like Cody Bellinger kind of looks like he's flying he was the one who came up with that celebration and the reason why is because his hand um he here like he like he was saying this is the baseball I like to hit it right here like the team at cubon they asked him why like why do you uh why are you hitting so well why are you on fire and he just said I like to just get the ball like right here when I he has an uppercut swing so Mike talkman or somebody they had interviewed somebody because um unfortunately is not with us yet but right yeah talkman was interviewed at Cubs Conan yeah it's funny because he was the big toy at Cubs con and everybody was speaking glowingly about him and that's that was the celebrate yeah you had one celebration Bellinger had another they did one halfway through the season and yeah they all talked about Bellinger he's like an inspiration to the team like you know he had terrible down Seasons came to the team and was on fire and yeah so I think he he'd be uh I think he would fly I think if I thought about it enough I would say give superow hours to Nick madreal I think he's he needs them all in stature so I feel like if anyone needs the superpowers it' probably be Nick yeah and we would give him just you know ton of muscle get that ball out of the infield when you hit it man I think I think of an Ant-Man thing for him right like he's so short like 5' seven that's true yeah give some Ant-Man powers and yeah he's closer to being Ant-Man than others you know if you shrunk him down like a couple feet he wouldd be really hard to see so I don't know three foot he'd be I guess he'd be a dwarf or something or I don't know the correct term to call him but he would be very small he may legally be that right now I'm not sure um so let's move on to the latest Weekly Cubs News news and stats some meat the meat and potatoes of our podcast here Josh hater just signed a fiveyear $95 million contract with the Astros making him the richest relief pitcher in history marking a dominant bullpen in Houston Zach what are your thoughts on this yeah so it's funny because Edwin Diaz signed a fiveyear $102 million deal and there was a thought that hater wanted to beat the deal and it turns out the Mets are one they the Mets are known to do deferrals going back to Bobby Bonia that's just been a running joke with them for Bonia was Mets right or am I losing my mind okay so I don't I don't really know what deferrals Edwin Diaz has but you remember the Otani deal had massive deferrals as well which gives it a lower value if you defer the money out further because of inflation all that kind of stuff time value money so I guess technically even though hater got 7 million less he got less deferred money so his present value was just slightly better than DS which is super annoying that um that that did it because I was thinking if he wanted to be richer he'd get 110 120 130 but the Cubs were never going to be in that market unfortunately unless it was maybe a two or threee deal that could have been something but unfortunately we're still empty-handed and the Astros are now stupid rich in backend arms Presley a Bru hater that's disgusting that's it's I'm sick like it's nauseous that's how gross that is I was just happy you didn't go to the Dodgers I mean like right that's any but the Dodgers you know like in the NFL playoffs it's anybody but the Packers right now so I'm glad you know that eliminated but that's well I'm a Bills fan so uh yeah that's right you're a Bills fan now that's right or we are um so when I first saw that my initial Instinct was probably similar to how you were reacting this is just stupid I mean the money is insane but then you're like well who's closing then right because you have Ryan Presley Josh hater um I would assume obviously Hector neres is not going to come back um unless they somehow sign him to a contract as well but otherwise we're looking at a pretty dominant back end of the bullpen uh for the next five years at least my instinct was that once this deal was signed a few more signings would happen and it's it's actually still been slow we can expect things to maybe slowly trickle in and Steven signed for three for 30 with the with the angel so I'm hoping that like you said nerys there might be a few others that sign this week and hopefully the Cubs get one of them I mean a lefty Matt Moore those are my thoughts as hater science like okay what are the lefties left it's RIS Chapman and Matt Moore right I was listening to locked on Cubs not that long ago and they were mentioning that name as well before the All-Star break I know you were really big on Moore as well and you know Matt Moore there' be a pretty decent pickup the Cubs could swing that yeah they need to make a couple last year they signed Brad Boxberger formerly of the Milwaukee Brewers who is solid could get lefties out with that Circle change up that Fades away from the left-hand of batter and they also had signed Michael Fulmer formerly of the Tigers had a closer relief type role bullet slider you know like 9092 they gave him a sweeper he had trouble controlling it a bit he's had shades of being good and then Brad boxberg was not good and also was injured for like a majority of the year so the Cubs just struck out all their signings last year the bullpen and really the minor league relievers were not good so they need to make a couple more signings to stabilize the back end right they did not want to go over the cap at the All-Star break so that's one of the reasons why they didn't add Top 15 Cubs Prospect via MLB Pipeline more Bullpen help even though they obviously needed more Bullpen help but our top topic of conversation is going to swing towards the Minor League rankings the MLB pipeline release the Cubs top 15 prospects we're going to talk about the top 10 today and I found it interesting I just checked this out a few minutes ago but Matt Shaw had actually moved down from five to 7 wow so check right now yeah I was kind of for the just for the convenience of our conversation I'm going to talk about the top five and I'm going to pitch it to Zach for the bottom five for six through 10 but actually technically Zach you would be responsible for talking about Matt Shaw if we had actually released this podcast maybe a day later so yeah I mean it's he's all yours if you want yeah he Pete Crow-Armstrong phenomenal yeah um so I'll just start off at the top here so we have Pete Crow [Music] Armstrong if you're kind of confused about what he looks like for me I listed him as a celeb lookalike as like a Russian villain um he definitely needs to I have a couple different things here three different things that I think he needs to focus on one is improve his plate discipline he had six strikeouts and 14 at bats so there's obviously a little bit of concern there it's a very very small sample size and I think with a little bit of seasoning at Triple A he'll be just fine some comps for him so some comparisons at the major league level is Kevin kerm that's one that I've heard I think he would be a slightly better defensive Kevin km even though he's all already Kevin km is pretty solid defensively the only thing is that Kevin km can hit a little bit more obviously than PCA um he needs to improve his base running so PCA was very aggressive um as far as using his speed he was caught two out of four times uh for stealing attempt so he definitely needs to improve his base running and I think that'll come when he starts to look at the pitch movements to the plate look at their mannerisms and slowly catch on to that when to break towards second base or third base so I feel like he'll definitely get a feel for that as he gets more and more experience and sees more and more pitchers keep and the thing the third thing that I have here is keep defense at an elite level his defense is perfectly great or perfectly fine um no complaints my only concern is maybe if he gets too overly aggressive and that could maybe come into play at the major league level if he feels like he's used to making those types of All-Star caliber plays but otherwise I'm very excited for PCA I think he'll maybe make it to about July hopefully no later than July and we'll see him at the major league level as long as he's ready at number two we have Kade Horton so for me his celeb lookalike is Cade Horton Breen Meer Sunny gry Breen Meer was in Clueless for those of you guys don't know he has an elite strikeout to walk Rao has 117 to uh 27 walks uh last year which is good for 4.3 strikeouts per walk he has a plus fast ball Plus slider his curveball needs a little bit of work his change up needs a little bit of work so if he just keeps working on those two pitches I think once he commands his fast ball at an elite level and he's ready to move on to Triple A then I think he'll be just fine my hope for him is to graduate fast maybe 88 to 90 Innings pitched at the minor league level and then graduate to the majors I'm really excited about Kade Warden um for me I actually rank him ahead of PCA as far as hype I think he's got tremendous value maybe in a little bit more value than PCA but right now he's at number two at Michael Busch MLB pipeline Michael Bush is number three is celeb look alike if you're not sure what he looks like he kind of looks like Simon Peg he's a strong Lefty bat projected by many to play first he's played all around the diamond um he's played third base second base he can spot start in left field if he needs to he doesn't have a great arm and he's not extremely fast um but he does have tons of power and a lot of potential to um be an every like an everyday um MLB player at first base Forbes Scouting Report had him uh with great hand ey coordination good balance projected hit about 20 to to 23 home runs which I think we discussed previously so I'm thinking maybe my ni castanos type of player hopefully um he's more likely to be a supportive player to get on base than to slug so he's going to be the player that adds on to someone that's going to slugs maybe like a Hoskins if you sign Hoskins you can maybe slot him ahead of your big Owen Caissie Sluggers uh then number four is Owen Casey Aaron Leighton from just baseball.com noted that he had an average velocity average exit velocity of 94 miles per hour which would rank in the top 15 in Major League Baseball his max exit velocity that he hit was 117 miles per hour G say like 110 or okay 117 yeah I mean I thought that was only you know things you see on the video game oh my God yeah he's got tremendous power big Slugger Lefty bat a big arm he's got a great arm I was watching a clip where he threw out Edwin Rios um on the I think it was a spring training game it was like Canada versus the Cubs or something wow and he threw him out from right field like Edwin Rios is not wait a minute last year Canada played the Cubs and Casey can Canada played the Cubs I wasn't sure if it was which I was watching spring training or something like that but Canada had played the Cubs and ow and Casey throughout Edwin RI I'm like wait am I watching this correctly are we saying right that's so cool yeah it was have to see if I can find a clip that clip for you but um yeah when I was watching I was like wow okay this guy has a cannon yeah potential to possibly be a DH depending on what the Outfield looks like um there's a lot of potential in our outfielders as you know we've talked about this at in depth about possibly trading from our Outfield depth to acquire other pieces so it just depends I mean he would be a tremendous DH but you could also slot him in at left if maybe you end up moving on from Ian hap or if you trade one of your other outfielders and he could fill in so it just depends but hopefully he'll be able to come up 2025 wouldn't think obviously this year unless he for some reason exploded onto the scene and just me on between dou a and tripa a and just was absolutely turn the cover off the ball but it looks like more like 2025 Matt Shaw for him and then coming at at number five is Matt Shaw I'm a huge Matt Shaw fan and every time it seems like I get on YouTube and Just Google Matt Shaw highlight reels it's just insane one of the recent videos that I was watching he hit a ball 507 feet uh once it was a grand slam versus Iowa they were down uh three and he hit a grand slam which didn't even look like I guess it was 507 feet but he hit it to a dead center and the outfielder did not move he just sat there watching it for like 10 seconds and it was just he has tremendous power he hit 347 with 32 home runs 97 RB in the last 421 at bats according to Cubby's crib um the question is does he take over the third base job possibly this year late this year I mean that seems like a pretty aggressive promotion but yeah Jim Callas of mlb.com projects him to be the fastest Riser so if anybody could do it it would most likely be a Matt Shaw he's versatile he can play Third Base he can play Short Stops so he can spell Dan V Swanson if he needs to we know that Dansby Swanson needs a break every now and then but not according does Nico yeah but it seemed like it seemed like Dansby really needed a break last year and he just kind of I don't know if he played through it or or if David Ross just kind of so so I'm really curious I'm very curious I think I'm besides him and Kade Horton I'm really curious to see how quickly they can get to the majors and how much are they going to impact our baseball team um he's taking over I want to say it's 97% of the Reps that he's had this offseason at third base or maybe even higher than that so he's definitely getting his reps in to play Third Base and take over my question to you Zach is do we need a stop Gap right now at third base or do you think that he could arrive at the scene at at uh at the major league level this year like do you feel like we need to sign someone to a one maybe two-year deal or do you think we need to maybe just see what we have maybe stick Morel at third base and then just roll with Matt Shaw either late this year or next year yeah this is a really good question it is the penultimate question of the Cubs off season right now is it the way I would address it is from from the latest media reports in the last few weeks couple weeks are that if the Cubs somehow don't sign Cody Bellinger resign him to a multi-year deal let's say they just the money's too much he's gone right they're going to want to fill in the Gap with a little bit of offense and maybe that's Matt Shaw but I just don't don't see Shaw going for more than a few years especially with Jed hoyer's careful planning for deals in the long-term future so in terms of a stop Gap I still feel like it's internal there's no other players in the market I mean it could have been candelario that that could have been the stop Gap I would have been fine with that give mat shos off Landing I I think it'll be some combo of Morell wisdom and magal as I hate to say three names at third that's unfortunately might be the direction they go and Morell if he can learn to play Third even League average he's going to be a top you know 10 uh 15 third baseman because of his ceiling wisdom is going to platoon a little bit and then madal seems to be the best Third Base Defender right now I actually wouldn't even be surprised if some at some point in the season they juggle things around and Nico plays a little bit third and Morell plays second maybe in Spring maybe once a month they do something like that it sounds like Morell is going to be very versatile and he won't be the full-time third I think they're going to have a carousell of options at third there and hopefully Shaw has definitely a good chance to come up this year but we got to see what he looks like with more than a few hundred of bats maybe a couple hundred get him Triple A and then have him face a little bit more advanced pitching and see if the numbers hold up right yeah I know Morell was getting work at first base right right yeah he did get he did get work at first and he got a a little bit more work at third in the Dominican winter leagues this this off season as well that's all I have for the top five so I'm going to pitch it to you Zach for six through 10 my my six through 10 on the Cubs MB pipeline Prospect list the Kevin Alcántara top 10 don't have any c lookalikes number six is Kevin alant he's played at the highest level was double A but mostly he spent the year at high a Southbend otherwise known as advanced AB ball or known as just a ball they just say low a sometimes he had a full season there 400 plate appearances he had 12 homers 66 ribbies 15 stol in bases and he struck out 23% of the time so we like to look at those strike out a walk numbers and be like all right are you over 30 are you over 20 Casey was over 30 last year I think in the high 20s at one point point so a contra being under 25% strikeout is a major like on our end for sure and then a seven 7.6% walk rate so he's walking at a little bit below average clip but the strikeout rate's not out of control his average 286 which is again solid 341 on base and he had a total Ops on base plus slugging for those who don't know of 807 at the that level so 466 slug which just means he's hitting a lot of doubles he had those home runs and he's got a lot of potential it a a 24% better than average batting WRC plus is another metric we like to use that's highly correlated with Ops just means he's in the cover off the ball he's in very well and he's got speed and he's I think he's 66 this dude's tall he's one of the tallest outfielders in the in the miners right now in ter terms of how he's projecting he's still going to project out to hit between 15 and 20 home runs maybe more I think he's a tradable candidate just because the Cubs have so many Outfield prospects right now they're they're John you've mentioned the number one and the number four Cubs prospects here in their top five those are both outfielders one plays center one plays right who knows where SE Suzuki is going to go or Ian ha's going to go that's the major question right so Kevin alantra on MB pipeline they have the ETA they think he'll come up in 2024 I think he's going to sit this year at Double A get some time and then I think he's gonna go to Triple A and end the season there and then 2025 I believe he'll have a good chance to come up and make a difference but they're going to have to open up some time from from The Outfield core unfortunately he's not an easy fit so I think there's still a chance they trade him in a bigger deal number seven I have Ben Brown on here and I think he Ben Brown has a good chance of being up to the big leagues as early as maybe May or June depending on how the bullpen shakes out I think he has a good chance of Landing in the bullpen getting a soft Landing as steel Al AI King and Thompson did add various points throughout the last few years he also has a ceiling of kind of a mid-level starter and eventually could replace Hendrick or tyion in the back of the rotation if he has a good year they may want to limit his Innings he'll get some time in the sixth seventh inning maybe cut multi- inning type appearance and then I think at some point he he has a good chance of graduating and again being you know hitting 95 97 he has good strikeout stuff the only issue right now with Ben Brown is that he needs to control the ball a little bit better so he he has he's basically shown plus stuff at every level even going all the way back to 2018 with the Phillies so he had rookie ball the Cubs got him in a trade and then as early as as soon as he got traded he bumped up from high a to double a and he then went on to have 12.7 and 13.8 K per nine who's striking out on average one and a half batters per inning this is like half the Batters he's facing he's striking out that's insane what are your concerns about his is there any injury concerns or at this point not yet only because he did have a major injury I believe in either 2019 or 2021 I know he came back for the Phillies and he did a little bit better once he got back on the field and then with the Cubs last year he had a I believe he had a tricep injury but I'm not 100% sure what his injury was anything along the elbow you get scared of I'm not super concerned yet it's been a while since his last major injury and he didn't have any major injuries with the Cubs last year however he did struggle he had a 5.3 ER AAA and he did start quite a few games but he was also in the bullpen so 15 games started seven games in the bullpen after he got injured and tried to come back in the bullpen he struggled a little bit so I'm curious if he'd be better with a more consistent role he did strike out a ton of guys his walk rate ballooned at Triple A so right now that's his next step is probably to go straight to Triple A and see if he can stabilize the walk numbers he's at 6.32 walks per nine which is a ton he's walking a ton of guys at that level 72 Innings that's a good sample so we do like his strikeout numbers obviously his ground ball rate needs to get up from where it was at Triple A but they're going to give him a couple months let him cook 60 50 60 innings and then once he hits that Mark they'll probably keep him under 130 for the year so I don't foresee him starting unless there's of course an injury right the Cs up a lot of depth so we'll see if he even gets a chance to start very much maybe in a spot roll but I'm hoping he can keep that up at that higher level for Moises Ballesteros sure the number eight on our list is Moises bosteros this guy is a hit tool machine which is a weird thing to say about someone other than he doesn't strike out a lot and essentially backto back of our players here in this range between eight and nine these are both hit tool guys byos and Jordan triantos or James triantos sorry I'm switching I was getting h of myself with Jordan Wicks but my Moises speros is in an interesting position right now because he is a catcher that isn't projecting as well as a catcher in ter terms of how he plays defense he made it up to double a last year at high a South Bend last year majority of his time he actually floated between low a and high a but his at the highest level where he had a decent sample 9% walk rate which is really good and only 19% strikeout at the low a level he had only a 12% strikeout those are insanely good and he's posting over 400 slugging at both levels so he you know he had 14 homers on the year so this guy's got a good hit tool I'm just a little nervous about where he projects defensively and where the Cubs could see him and so anywhere in the six of 10 range I have these guys all as tradable number nine is James triantos James Triantos. he was known for having a really good Arizona fall League season here in this off season he's not have showing a ton of power so far but he's more along the hit tool line getting contact at high a he had a 10% strikeout a 16% maybe he'd like to walk a little bit more to get his on base up or his Ops up needs to slug over 400 needs to hit Clos to like 10 home runs at low he hits seven so I think he just he needs to embrace his utility role and he needs to hit just a little bit more maybe a little bit more gaps a little bit more power in order to fit in utility role that is sort of his ceiling and again I could also see him being tradable only because there's already middle fielders that are good maybe his ceiling is is sort of like a bench player like a magical but slightly Jordan Wicks better and the last player we have on our list is someone who's going to graduate very quickly I'm not even sure how he's still on this list Jordan Wicks who moved up to to the majors this year he went from double A to tripa a to the majors and he logged 58 Innings 30 Innings and another 30 Innings 34 innings in the big league level his numbers actually you know got a little bit worse in terms of strikeouts per nine from 10 to 8 to six he needs a strike out more batters a a AAA eight strikeouts per nine is fine three walks per nine those are all solid rates he had a 3.80 ER in the tripa a level and then when he got to The Bigs 4.41 this guy's going to pencil in as your fifth starter this year he's got a great repertoire a change up a couple good breaking ball offerings and a fast ball between 92 and 94 he's got a ceiling of like a mid-level starter because he's got great command and control sort of like a left-handed faster Kyle Hendricks because of a change up he's got the pitch ability Factor he needs to just get the strikeouts back in line and park the area under four and I think his goal this year should be between 130 and 150 Innings if he can do that bring bulk Innings to the back end of the rotation I think he's got a good chance of obviously he's going to graduate but also being extremely valuable to this team I'm really excited to see what he can do and he was drafted in 2021 so it's really awesome that in two years you already made it to the bigs and and put up pretty solid numbers thanks oh as for the rest of the list that that we uh we went through we kind of brainstormed and look at the top 15 M pipelined as the top 30 I foresee Jefferson Roos Michael Arius potentially mvis or Canario Alexander Canario if they stay on the team and Drew gray as moving up into the top 10 very soon especially once PCA Horton Bush and Ben Brown all are expected to graduate this year so ton of good prospects and they're all major league ready which is freaking awesome yeah out of those 15 choose three that you feel like you're Or Else really excited about like you're you're really you can't wait to see them at the major league level which three do you think out of all 15 PCA Horton and Shaw they all have the highest ceiling pca's got the speed in the defense Horton's got breaking ball offerings and a high good fast ball good spin rates he's nasty and Shaw's got a wicked uh swing and he I think he's going to end up being a tremendous athlete and play Third so I'm excited about that um but that is all the time we have for today thanks for joining us on the brotherly Cubs podcast you have any any thoughts on today's podcast comment them below or if you have another topic like us to talk about let us know make sure to hit the Subscribe button turn on the notifications or join the conversation with us on Twitter brotherly Cubs or on Spotify at brotherly Cubs I am Zach and this is my brother John and we will see you next time peace peace Listen to This [Applause] Crowd