Article: Chicago Cubs Top Prospect Rankings, 2024 Preseason: #6-10

[Josh Illes]

We're rounding second and heading to third as our prospect round table moves into our personal top 10s. With only ten prospects remaining, who will make our top-5 and barely miss out?

Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

This is the third part of my roundtable on the state of the Cubs' minor league system with @1908_Cubs. We've already released prospects 11-20 earlier, and we're heading into our top 10. Make sure you're all caught up before checking out who we have ranked 10th through 6th!

Jason's 10th Ranked Prospect: Ben Brown, SP/RP
Ben Brown is the prospect I struggled most to find a home for. His stuff is incredible: you can argue that his fastball-slider/curveball combination is on par with Cade Horton, and his slider/curveball is as good as anything in the entire system. But what comes with excellent stuff is the inability to control it; with Ben Brown, it’s night and day. Brown struggled in Triple A to consistently throw strikes (though he also spent some time injured). There’s a ton of reliever risk here, so I tried to split the difference between the guaranteed relievers in Little/Palencia and the guaranteed start in Jordan Wicks. I don’t think Brown will make many starts for the Cubs in 2024, though I wouldn’t rule out a few token ones; it could be a leverage/impact call-up for the team in case of injury in the bullpen. The Cubs may use Brown like they did with Steele and Thompson before him, giving him a multi-inning role before transitioning him back to the rotation in a year or so. Regardless, he’s a fun prospect who has some real concerns. Even if he’s just a reliever, the stuff is good enough that he remains a tantalizing talent and the type of prospect you rarely find with nine better talents in a given system.

Josh's 10th Ranked Prospect: Jefferson Rojas, SS
Rojas came out of nowhere to raise prospect rankings last year. He’s still 18 but plays much older, never getting too high or too low emotionally in what can be an emotional position in an emotional sport. That even-keeled approach has allowed him to make serious adjustments in his hitting approach, where he has made contact at an almost unprecedented level for someone his age. That, along with superior defense, has vaulted him past other prospects like Cristian Hernandez into the top 10 in most Cubs' prospects lists. The next step for him will be to add some power to his profile, but given his ability to find barrels, that step seems likely. More simply put, Rojas plays excellent defense and hits a lot of line drives. Those two things are what I’m looking for with a prospect his age. This upcoming year will test him, but he has passed every test he’s been given. If he continues his progression at the same pace he has shown, he will easily be a top-three prospect in the Cubs system next year and probably a top-50 prospect in all of baseball.

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Jason's 9th Ranked Prospect: Jefferson Rojas, SS
I know some people will see what Rojas did in 2023 and think this is just Kevin Made 2: Electric Boogaloo, but the hope here is that where Made stagnated after Myrtle Beach, Rojas continues to grow. Bursting onto the scene in 2023, Rojas finished with a 115 wRC+ at 18. Even more impressive, at least to me, is the advanced approach in a hard-to-hit environment like Myrtle can be. If there’s some polish, it’d be seeing him hit more home runs, but I think it’s a good reminder…he’s just 18 years old, and he’s already 15% better than average in Low A. I think the swing is geared for some more power, and while I suspect his listed height/weight of 5'10" 150 pounds is outdated, he can probably grow a bit more, too. Whether or not he can stick long-term at shortstop is probably a fair question to propose for someone who’s probably more of a 50-grade fielder (currently), but there’s a lot of time to go before I start worrying about that. 

Josh's 9th Ranked Prospect: Jordan Wicks, SP
Wicks holds almost every Kansas State pitching record when it comes to strikeouts. That ability to miss bats is why the Cubs took him in the first round of the 2021 draft. At the professional level, he has been impressive. He progressed so much that he warranted a call-up to the big league team on August 26th last season. At that point in their season, the Cubs were still thinking about a playoff push. I don’t want to rehash how the rest of the season went down, but I do want to note that Wicks was emphatically not part of the reason for the collapse. He did what was expected of him or anyone else in that situation, going 4-1 in seven starts. He still has a lot of room for improvement, however. For instance, he needs to keep improving his slider or scrap it for a new pitch. But his ceiling remains high, and he should be able to continue contributing as a viable member of the big league rotation in 2024.

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Jason's 8th Ranked Prospect: Jordan Wicks, SP
I admit: when the Cubs took Jordan Wicks in the first round of the 2021 draft, I was pretty bummed out. At the time, I saw a changeup-specialist left-handed pitcher with limited upside. Since then, however, I’ve really appreciated the left-hander, and I think he’s more than just a control/changeup bottom-rotation arm. It’d be easy to point to his lack of swings and misses once he jumped to the MLB. Still, as I stated in another article, I believe Wicks is going to be pretty okay in that department: he was well above the Triple-A average in that category, and while I doubt he’s ever going to be a K-monster, once he gains a bit more confidence in himself and his position in the Cubs, I think they’ll come more often. While I think Jordan Wicks has a lot of Jon Lester in him, especially his mound presence, I doubt he’s got that kind of upside. Ultimately, I think he’ll settle in as a pitcher who’s more than just the sum of his parts, as an FIP-beating #4 with a low-#3 ceiling. That’s always a win. 

Josh's 8th Ranked Prospect: Alexander Canario, OF
I want to rank Canario even higher than this, even though having him at eight is a bit of a reach compared to where most people think he is among Cubs prospects. I’ve seen him play in person exactly one time, in late 2022, and he hit two mammoth home runs that game. He was amid a breakout that year, blasting 37 long balls over 125 games between High A and Double A. Two months after I saw him play, disaster struck when Canario suffered major injuries to his left ankle and left shoulder while playing in the Dominican Winter League. He made it back and then some last season, though, getting up to Chicago for a few at-bats with the big league club in September. I understand why the injury resulted in his stock dipping a bit, but I also want to give him credit for the resilience it takes to fight back in a relatively short period. That says a lot about his discipline and work ethic, making me think he’s more capable of reaching a 90th percentile outcome of his ceiling. I will keep him firmly in my top ten for now, and I can’t wait to watch him play this season.

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Jason's 7th Ranked Prospect: Moises Ballesteros, C
Is he a catcher? Is he a DH? Do I care? I don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I do know that Moises Ballesteros can hit, and he can hit really well. I talk a lot about advanced approaches, but Big Mo probably has the best age/approach combination in the entire system, and just how it continues to evolve and mature gets me excited. I want to start to see some doubles turn into home runs, and I think they probably will down the road as he grows into himself a bit more. There have been mixed reviews on his receiving, but I still think he can become a long-time catcher despite his awkward body, which causes people to downplay his long-term position more than his current ability behind the plate. The good news is that he might still hit enough that being a designated hitter may still be a viable path to the MLB for Mo. It’d be better for everyone involved if he’s genuinely a catcher, but like I said…I’m not sure I care. I like the bat that much.

Josh's 7th Ranked Prospect: James Triantos, INF
The 20-year-old Triantos was the Cubs 2nd round pick 2021 out of high school in Virginia. He reclassified in high school in the hopes of getting his college career started a year early, but the Cubs gave him 2.1 million reasons to tell North Carolina thanks but no thanks, and so he did. A second baseman by trade, Triantos will remain at that position. Still, he also has the arm to play third base and the outfield, so while I would have difficulty ranking a player limited to 2B this high, I’m more comfortable doing it with the right-handed hitting Triantos. He had a great 2023 season at High-A South Bend, slashing .285/.363/.390 while stealing 20 bases. That got the attention of the Cubs' front office, who then placed him in the Arizona Fall League following the season, where he got everyone's attention. He had 35 hits in 84 at-bats, with an OPS of 1.174. Coming out of the AFL, he had many scouts talking about his power potential, and if he can add that to his more contact-oriented profile, he could be a name to watch over the next few years.

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Jason's 6th Ranked Prospect: Kevin Alcantara, OF
I needed help determining where to put Kevin Alcantara on my list. There’s so much to like in his game: he’s genuinely a unicorn in that players his size don’t play centerfield well, and yet, you can easily see a 55 glove in center field. Added to that easy 30-homer power and a wonderful swing…it’s easy to dream of the potential. With that potential, however, come some flaws and flags. As Alcantara is sometimes called, the Jaguar can be beaten up and in, attacking his long levers. How well he’ll adjust to getting around on high velocity will be a big talking point. Despite almost leading the Arizona Fall League in home runs, he also was among the leaders for swings and misses; this is concerning because the AFL isn’t usually known for its depth of quality pitching. With Pete Crow-Armstrong ahead of Alcantara, both on my list and in my timeline, the powerful righty may end up in a corner spot, where he’d be a legitimate gold glove caliber player. I wouldn’t blame anyone for putting him higher on their list, but I remain a bit more concerned about his ability to make the kind of contact he would need to. With that said, if push comes to shove, he’s probably still the highest ceiling prospect in the system, regardless of the risk involved.

Josh's 6th Ranked Prospect: Owen Caissie, OF
Please help us, Owen Caissie; you’re our only hope (of getting anything out of the Yu Darvish trade). Much like the protagonist of that original sentiment, I believe Caissie will deliver on that hope. Having Caissie at six and not even higher on my list says more about the top 5 than it says about Caissie. The left-handed, power-hitting outfielder has shown absolute studliness since being promoted to High-A South Bend to start the 2022 season at 19. After a month of growing pains at that level, he thrived, putting together a monster year that earned him the Cubs Minor League Player of the Year that season. Looking at his profile, the thing that sticks out to me is that he has likely always played “up,” as it were. Having a July 2002 birthday and being drafted in 2020 means he was only 17 when he was drafted. Many youth players with July birthdays end up either playing with the grade below them and dominating or playing with their grade as one of the youngest players and struggling sometimes. Caissie chose the latter, which you can see by how he is comfortable playing below age level in the minors so far. As a 20/21-year-old last season at Double-A Tennessee, he slashed .289/.389/.519 with 22 homers and 31 doubles. This year, as a 21/22-year-old, he will get a shot at Triple A. He will be one of the younger players in the International League, but, hey, what else is new? At some point, I expect he will be in Chicago, where someone will point out that he is one of the youngest players in the Major Leagues, but I don’t expect that to faze Caissie.

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Who do you think we've got ranked as our number 1 prospect? Is someone on this list who would belong in the top-5 conversation? Please drop us a comment below and let us know!

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