2025 MLB Draft Day 2 Thread: Chicago Cubs Draft on North Side Baseball

[Bobson Dugnutt]

12 minutes ago, bukie said:

Finally, my kid can put his phone down and not worry about getting a draft call from scouts that were definitely not looking at him while looking at Conor Essenburg and Jack Bauer. 🙂

TIL bukie and I are neighbors

[Bertz]

17 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

4 college hitters, all of them with more walks than Ks and Conrad the only one with a K% above 7%.  Really think there's something to the Bat Control hypothesis

Also pretty logically consistent with the Reid pick where you take a guy with good feel and try to juice his velo.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

[Outshined_One]

7 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I mean, I only know what is written by scouts and where guys are ranked that the Cubs took. But I have to say I am a bit underwhelmed by what they have done up until now. Where are they spending this money? Sounds like so far they might have 2 guys people are excited about. The rest were reaches or at best, about where they should be. College seniors are also a way to not towns money on a signing. They did that a few times. There has to be something big happening, right? 

The key thing to keep in mind with the Cubs' draft is their bonus pool is dictated by where they are picking in the draft and how many picks they have.  Because they have the 17th pick and did not receive any draft pick compensation for any FAs, they are pretty much middle of the road relative to the rest of the league.

In the Cubs' situation, finding 2-3 guys people are excited about in the first 10 rounds is actually a good thing.  It's not ideal, I'll grant that, but they're not situated to take top end guys by virtue of where they are picking and their draft pool won't let them go completely bananas.  You basically end up ragpicking in this scenario, and it's hard to find treasure among the detritus.

It's worth keeping an eye on the next few rounds, though.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

5 minutes ago, Outshined_One said:

The key thing to keep in mind with the Cubs' draft is their bonus pool is dictated by where they are picking in the draft and how many picks they have.  Because they have the 17th pick and did not receive any draft pick compensation for any FAs, they are pretty much middle of the road relative to the rest of the league.

In the Cubs' situation, finding 2-3 guys people are excited about in the first 10 rounds is actually a good thing.  It's not ideal, I'll grant that, but they're not situated to take top end guys by virtue of where they are picking and their draft pool won't let them go completely bananas.  You basically end up ragpicking in this scenario, and it's hard to find treasure among the detritus.

It's worth keeping an eye on the next few rounds, though.

The Cubs had the 22nd largest bonus pool this year.

[Post Count Padder]

Hey the Book is out on that pick. He went to school in Philly. This area has seen some kids do well in the last few years

[craig]

10 more rounds, so no idea what Kantro has.  But all three of yesterday's picks seem variably underslot, with Greg speculating that Conrad is going WAY underslot.  Reid certainly projects to be significant underslot.  

Then this morning, 5 of 7 guys were old senior-sign guys, who'll turn 23 before Christmas.  Each has some baseball ceiling, so I'm not suggesting they'll be $1K guys like Riley Martin was.  But sure would expect there is some underslot happening from those guys.  

plus of course the $481 overage allowed.  

I trust Kantro on this.  But unless Hartshorn is getting some huge superslot, it would seem Kantro has probably assembled more superslot capacity than Wing and Hartshorn alone will absorb?  

[Bertz]

15 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I mean, I only know what is written by scouts and where guys are ranked that the Cubs took. But I have to say I am a bit underwhelmed by what they have done up until now. Where are they spending this money? Sounds like so far they might have 2 guys people are excited about. The rest were reaches or at best, about where they should be. College seniors are also a way to not towns money on a signing. They did that a few times. There has to be something big happening, right? 

I think a few things:

- The Cubs' farm currently is very top-heavy heavy, so Conrad not becoming their new top prospect (and I'd argue not even in the top 5) doesn't do him as many favors with the fans as adding the same exact guy to a much crappier farm

- Also, more broadly, picking 17th you're likely done with all the Wow guys in a draft unless you accept a healthy dose of risk (the health of Gage Wood's shoulder for instance)

- The team's Top 30 prospects is going to likely have 5 or 6 new names on it.  For a system that has become pretty thin (and will probably get thinner over the next few weeks) there was some need to go quantity over quality

- The Cubs are *HEAVY* into using Statcast data in their draft model.  The problem is for amateurs that's only out there in pockets, not in some nice central database like BaseballSavant.  So it's been kind of inevitable the last two drafts for some random Twitter account with 600 followers obsessed with Tennesee Baseball or whatever to chime in that such and such guy has 98th percentile contact and 85th percentile power to help explain the "Why" behind a 6th round pick.  It often takes the Twitter sleuths like Greg Z time to find these nuggets of info (and the state of Twitter certainly isn't helping here)

[Rcal10]

29 minutes ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Well, they're going well over slot on Wing and Hartshorn.

Is Wing really much of an overshot? I mean he was projected around 100 and went 120th. Is that really something they have to pay that much for? I understand their situation. But it looks like they took a lot of meh players and/ir seniors, gearing up for a big bonus pick soon. And if not, they draft was kind of uneventful. Doesn’t mean it will turn out bad. Just means they didn’t draft what the consensus of experts thought was value. 🤷

[CaliforniaRaisin]

6 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Is Wing really much of an overshot? I mean he was projected around 100 and went 120th. Is that really something they have to pay that much for? I understand their situation. But it looks like they took a lot of meh players and/ir seniors, gearing up for a big bonus pick soon. And if not, they draft was kind of uneventful. Doesn’t mean it will turn out bad. Just means they didn’t draft what the consensus of experts thought was value. 🤷

I assume Wing is getting ~$1 million, which would be nearly $400k over slot. Using Pipeline's rankings, he was ranked 87th and slot for 87 is $907k.  Obviously teams don't use Pipeline or BA to rank/pay prospects but it feels like a good baseline to use. (Also after a few years of guessing on this, I've realized I should err on the side of assuming a larger bonus for prep prospects drafted after day 1.)

[Neuby]

 Bauer is going to be a Cub. Manifest it.

[craig]

Yeah, I'd assume ≥$1M for Wing.  I'd assume ≥$1 for Hartshorn too.  But *IF* they were each $1.0, it would take barely $1M to cover that.  With almost $500K in overage, it seems Kantro should have way more than $1M to spend on superslot.  

So either some more superslots ahead, or else Cubs like one or both of Hartshorn a LOT, more than $1M.  

[CaliforniaRaisin]

11th round: Cubs select Eli Jerzembeck, RHP, South Carolina

[Hrubes20]

1 minute ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

11th round: Cubs select Eli Jerzembeck, RHP, South Carolina

Hasn't pitched since 2023.  Now that's a deep dive.  

[CaliforniaRaisin]

1 minute ago, Hrubes20 said:

Hasn't pitched since 2023.  Now that's a deep dive.  

Was very well regarded out of HS and had a good freshman year but the arm is messed up.

[Bertz]

Interesting that none of the remaining top 100 guys have been popped here in the 11th, not just the Cubs.  Is there some new Meta strategy that makes the 11th no longer the place to do that?

Or maybe teams need more phone working time?

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Quote

428. Eli Jerzembeck

RHP

Ht: 6'2" | Wt: 185 | B-T: R-R

School: South Carolina Drafted/Committed: Never Drafted
Age At Draft: 22.1

Jerzembeck ranked as a top-250 prospect in the 2022 class out of high school, but made it to campus at South Carolina where he posted a 2.84 ERA over 31.2 innings with solid swing-and-miss stuff and control. The next two years have been difficult for him. Jerzembeck missed the 2024 season with Tommy John surgery, then missed the entire 2025 season with a stress fracture in his right elbow. After not pitching for two seasons, Jerzembeck entered the transfer portal at the end of the 2025 season. When healthy the 6-foot-2, 185-pound righthander has shown an above-average fastball/breaking ball combination to go with good control. He throws a fastball in the low 90s and has touched 96 and pairs it with a low-80s high-spin breaking ball up to the 3,000 rpm range with huge shape and movement. The fastball/breaking ball combo is his bread-and-butter, but he also worked in a mid-to-upper-80s changeup. Jerzembeck is a huge draft question mark given his health and the fact that he hasn’t pitched in two years.

- BA

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Just now, Bertz said:

Interesting that none of the remaining top 100 guys have been popped here in the 11th, not just the Cubs.  Is there some new Meta strategy that makes the 11th no longer the place to do that?

Or maybe teams need more phone working time?

Or with NIL, is not even worth trying on some of these guys?

[JBears79]

Hmm why not. Sounds like he could be a high leverage reliever if he can get healthy

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Angels swinging big finally with their Bremner savings: Talon Haley in the 12th.

[Bertz]

12 minutes ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

Or with NIL, is not even worth trying on some of these guys?

Oof, that would be a well deserved own goal on MLB's part

Looks like the Angels just popped one at least, so fingers crossed

[CaliforniaRaisin]

12th round: RHP Connor Spencer, Ole Miss (senior)

Not ranked anywhere I can see

[JD94]

1 minute ago, CaliforniaRaisin said:

12th round: RHP Connor Spencer, Ole Miss (senior)

Not ranked anywhere I can see

From my Alma Mater. I’m a baseball season ticket holder there. Never was really high on Connor. Just one of those guys that seems to always work himself into jams. Mid 90’s fastball that without looking at the numbers, I’d bet he threw 50% of the time. Was our closer. I mean he’s solid. Definitely some tools to work with, but nothing earth shattering here. 

[Rcal10]

The list of meh picks continues. Don’t get it. Obviously the Cubs are seeing something most others don’t see or agree with. Maybe Jed was instructed not to spend on the draft🤷. So they are going cheap. 

[Hrubes20]

1 minute ago, Rcal10 said:

The list of meh picks continues. Don’t get it. Obviously the Cubs are seeing something most others don’t see or agree with. Maybe Jed was instructed not to spend on the draft🤷. So they are going cheap. 

Or Wing and Hartshorn are more overslot than we think and they ate up all the savings.