The Chicago Cubs have dedicated a great amount of time and effort to acquiring players by every means possible. While they’ve made strides in drafting in recent years — selecting players like Cade Horton, Matt Shaw, and Cam Smith in recent drafts — they’ve also been stepping up their game when it comes to international signings. One of their latest signings, Juan Tomas, is emerging as a household name among scouts at the Dominican Summer League.

When Juan Tomas was signed by the Chicago Cubs late in the 2024 international signing window, he had flown so under the radar to the point that MLB pipeline hadn’t ranked him in their top-50 draft report. The Cubs ended up grabbing him for a $1,100,000 signing bonus, making him the 26th-highest-paid signee for the year. It’s not often you see a guy go from unranked to the top of the international pool bonus, but it wasn’t that the Cubs were overreaching for a guy just to round out their signings.

Tomas was originally slated to go to the Miami Marlins when team ownership decided to turnover and revamp their international scouting department. Tomas and his team had decided that since their connections to the Miami system were gone, they were going to explore the other team possibilities late in the window. While he was navigating this time of uncertainty, Tomas hit a growth spurt, growing into a projectable 6’3”, 175 pound frame at 17 years old that immediately garnered the attention of scouts after he had inked his deal with the Cubs.

Seemingly overnight, Juan Tomas turned into the kind of guy that scouts love to refer to as “toolsy teens”—young players who possess all of the physical skills to become a multi-tool star, but lack the maturity, reps, and development to put it all together. It’s the potential that’s rocketed Tomas into the limelight, with some scouts going as far as dropping comparisons to star shortstop Elly De La Cruz. It’s not completely unreasonable either; scouting departments around baseball have praised his starting tool kit, projecting that he has the potential to develop all five tools. Currently, his most favorable skill is his speed, and he projects to be an annual 30 stolen base threat.

Hit other tools aren’t far behind though. At just 17, he already has above-average arm strength and fielding abilities, leading most scouts to believe in his ability to stick at shortstop or to develop into an above-average center fielder if needed. Tomas oozes potential, and it’s not hard to see a world in which he develops into a major league shortstop with 30-30 upside. He’s currently a switch hitter (like his De La Cruz comps), but he’s so raw from the right side of the plate that some scouts suggest he should drop his right-handed swing completely and work on developing himself exclusively as a lefty hitter.

In his first season of the Dominican Summer League, Tomas has already started turning heads with his speed and plate discipline. He’s struggling with consistency at the plate, not at all uncommon for 17 year olds getting their first taste of pro ball. Through 21 games in the DSL, he’s hitting only .129 with a .226 slugging percentage. Despite his struggles at the plate, he’s still getting on base at a respectable 34.1% clip thanks to his 21 walks, a testament to his advanced plate approach. He’s also managed to notch two doubles, two triples, and five stolen bases to start the year.

It’s hard to make judgements on a teenager in their first season of professional baseball, but Tomas is swimming in physical potential—enough to get some scouts to declare that he possesses the highest ceiling of any player in the entire Cubs farm system. Not just amongst their international signings, but in their entire system. He’s still quite a few years away from cracking the majors, but it’s not often a team gets a guy with five-tool potential into their organization. He has a vast gap between his floor and his ceiling, and his likely outcomes are all over the board, but that comes with the potential for immense power and defensive prowess as well. Only time will tell if he can fine tune his skill set, but the international scouting team seems to have just handed Jed Hoyer his next shiny lottery ticket.