2025 MLB Draft Thoughts: Making Sense of the Cubs' Direction

[Jason Ross]

Image courtesy of © Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Here's the thing about the MLB Draft: teams generally have a profile that you can bank on. The Los Angeles Angels will usually select someone who they feel will join their MLB roster within a year of the ink drying on their contract, and Tyler Bremner could be their next guy to do that. The Cleveland Guardians adore their high-strikeout, big-power outfielders, and lo-and-behold when Texas A&M product Jace Laviolette fell to them late in the first, they were the team to jump. The Cubs have some tendencies of their own under Dan Kantrovitz, they like college hitters who have Cape League experience at the top, and in taking Ethan Conrad, I thought they were well on their way to keeping up with norms as Conrad fits a typical Cub profile. By the second round, however, things felt a little different. Overall, this draft feels a bit different than how the Cubs operated prior. But therein lies a question: is change inherently negative?

I won bury the lede here—I don't think different has to equate to bad. Sometimes, different is just, well, different. In other words, it's change. The 2025 draft, on the surface, was shaping up like a different year; NIL is a real thing for college hitters, the covid-bonus-years are running out, and the top talent of this draft felt like it was lagging behind in star power of the last few classes. Regardless, the Cubs definitely zigged where they had been zagging. For example, the Cubs have been pretty consistent in how they handle their second-round pick, taking a bit of a swing on prep players, or players with perceived high ceilings. Instead, this year they went with UNC outfielder Kane Kepley. 

Kepley, a very speedy, great baserunning, 70-grade defender in CF lacks game power to a point where it's safe to say he's got a very high likelihood to make an MLB roster some day, but probably doesn't provide enough value to start for a contending team. Between their recent second-round picks where the Cubs gambled on upside like Jaxon Wiggins (coming off Tommy John surgery) or Cole Mathis (also a TJS under his belt) Kepley feels like a departure in that regards. I don't dislike Kepley per se, but I do find him as a bit of a different pick from their normal second round type.

Moving forward, a hallmark of Dan Kantrovitz drafts has been the high-upside 11th-round pick. For those who are a little confused at the structure of the MLB draft, the 11th round changes the game for teams in that in any round past the 10th, a team is not penalized from their draft pool allotment if they cannot secure a signature, which allows teams to take a larger swing because you can survive a miss. In past years the Cubs have selected prep hitters such as Zyhir Hope and Eli Lovich in this spot, upside kids who you can dream on. This year, the Cubs picked a pitcher who hasn't pitched in two years. Elijah Jerzembeck was a pretty highly regarded recruit to South Carolina a few years ago, but we haven't seen him take a mound for quite some time. Jaxon Wiggins hadn't pitched in a bit, himself, so there is recent history with injured arms, but this feels a bit different. Again, maybe not "bad", but it sticks out. Jerzembeck still has upside, but feels like quite the risk. There is a lot to like about his curveball and a fastball that was hitting 95mph at age-19, but it's been a while. 

Speaking of Jerzembeck and his injuries, a litany of Cubs 2025 draft picks are coming off of injury. First round pick Ethan Conrad (who I like a bunch!) missed most of the year with a shoulder injury, previously mentioned Elijah Jerzembeck hasn't thrown in two years, Kaemyn Franklin (Kohl's younger brother) just had his own TJS, and sixth round Josiah Hartshorn was rarely healthy over the last period of time, forcing the switch hitter to hit either hit just right or left handed (depending on his ailment) for stretches of time. On one hand, it's probably better if these kids rehab their injuries with an MLB organization and all of the resources they have, but it is a bit of an eyebrow raiser with the amount of players who are hurt. Perhaps this is a way to get in on the ground-floor of someone others are too afraid to pick, or maybe they will not pan out; only time will tell.

I don't want to be a negative Nancy, however, as there are plenty of positives to find. First, I really like Ethan Conrad. In a draft that feels like it was lacking big-time talent, getting someone who could hit 20 home runs from the left side, has a real shot to stick in CF, and had some top-10 helium as recent as April already felt like a win. Add in that he's likely to sign under-slot? Huge win.

Dominic Reid has a dominant change up that profiles similar to second-overall-pick Tyler Bremner, so if you believe in the Zombro-system, he could become an under-slot poor-mans version of a top-pick. The Cubs fourth and sixth-round picks of Kaleb Wing and Josiah Hartshorn have big time upside, with the former being someone who could legitimately top the upper-90's with some work and Hartshorn is a beast of a human at his age already. Even deep in the draft, 16th-round pick Riely Hunsaker, a pitcher from Lamar University, has history with Tread Athletics (Tyler Zombro's pitching developmental team), so you have to feel like the Cubs have some inside information. I really like all of these picks in a vacuum, so I'd caution all of us not to be too down on this draft.

In the end, I can't quite help feeling like the Cubs went in a very different direction than we're used to seeing. Coming from a team that has had a lot of success drafting from 2021-2024, finding standouts at the top of the draft and later rounds, it feels like an odd departure. The pessimist in me would say something along the lines that perhaps their shift in scouting has affected things and that it feels quite bold to go away from what worked recently. That's only one view, as I would think that the optimist would say that best time to change your process isn't after it stops working, but before. Anecdotally, we've likely all seen the person who doesn't know when to stop gambling. "I can't stop when I'm ahead," they grumble, right before they lose it all on black. The best time to change, or to get out, isn't after you lose, it's before. With a shifting draft landscape, changing your style can pay dividends. 

You may feel differently than I do, and that's fair. Funny thing about the MLB draft is that none of us will know if we're right or wrong for over a half-decade, long enough that whatever we disagree on today will be long forgotten. I'm trying to balance the different feel of the 2025 draft with my belief in Dan Kantrovitz and his previous drafts. He's turned into one of the better minds in baseball when it comes to the amateur draft and him losing the plot entirely feels unlikely. In the end, despite it being an appeal to authority, the Cubs and Kantrovitz have earned more than enough good will from me to say "I know it feels weird today, but..." and to give this new strategy a chance. Initial reactions from fans on Cade Horton and Jaxon Wiggins were, at best, split (and at worst, much more accusatory than that) and I doubt you'd find anyone willing to move either in a trade short of highway robbery. These things take time, so even if you're feeling that negativity creep in, I think we're in good hands. In Dan I trust. Do you?

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What do you think of the 2025 Cubs draft? Who was your favorite pick? Who did you dislike? Let us know in the comment section below!

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[CubinNY]

Is it still five years to judge? I'd say it depends on who the prospects are in that year's draft that the team drafted. Like if you draft a high upside HS pitcher in round 1, a polished college position player in round 2, and a 4-year college pitcher in round 3. For the latter two, you should have a good idea of what you have in three years. 

In the later rounds (6-20), the bust rate is so high across the board that it seems somewhat unfair to judge unless a team has multiple hits across multiple years. 

[Jason Ross]

36 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Is it still five years to judge? I'd say it depends on who the prospects are in that year's draft that the team drafted. Like if you draft a high upside HS pitcher in round 1, a polished college position player in round 2, and a 4-year college pitcher in round 3. For the latter two, you should have a good idea of what you have in three years. 

In the later rounds (6-20), the bust rate is so high across the board that it seems somewhat unfair to judge unless a team has multiple hits across multiple years. 

Yes. At least. Even if a college kid makes his professional debut in 2 years, we can expect that they will struggle upon initial callup for a significant sample. Then, you probably don't want to make a decision on a player's entire career after one or two years of data; plenty of players have a good year and then never repeat it. Prep player's will take 4 years to realistically make a debut at age 22, and five to make a debut at 23. They factor into this as well. And thats if they arent a pitcher and dont have TJS and miss 1.5 years in the middle. 

We are only really able to start to look at the 2020 draft class and make determinations. If you looked in 2024, I doubt we would all say "yeah, Pete Crow Armstrong might be the best OFer in the entire draft!' A year later and its shaking out that way, but that is now five years on and as much as I love PCA, if he slides backwards on something (not the craziest concept) that could change again. Max Meyer looks pretty good, but is he better than, say, Jared Jones? I don't think we have enough data there.

Best practice is that with more years we can make a more definitive assessment of what happened with development and asset usage. Today all we can say is "yeah, the draft felt different" but the fruits of it will continue to bared for years to come. I can squint and see the plan for someone like Dominick Reid but who knows what happens there. Or Hartshorn. Or Wing. Lots to go to see if this switch up is a positive one or not.