How One Game in the Cactus League Gave Us Important Information About Jefferson Rojas

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Angelina Alcantar/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In a key at-bat last September, Nico Hoerner sat on a fastball and got one in his wheelhouse. He had the advantage of being ahead 2-0 on the Rays' Bryan Baker, and there were two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the eighth inning. The score was 4-4. Never have all the incentives been more aligned for a player to swing from his heels, and Hoerner did just that. The ball was a searing line drive into the left-field corner—a double, not a homer, but only because he hadn't lifted it enough.

That was the hardest Hoerner had hit a ball all season, by a good margin. It jumped off his bat at 108.1 miles per hour; he hadn't hit any other ball even 106 miles per hour all season. Locked in, sitting on one pitch and one location and looking for extra-base juice, he set a new season high for batted-ball ferocity.

Three days later, he nearly matched himself, although the result was much less impressive. Again, he was trying to ambush something—this time, a first-pitch splinker from Paul Skenes of the Pirates. Michael Busch had just hit a leadoff homer, and Hoerner was trying to catch Skenes reeling a bit. He nearly did it, too. The ball had more of the plate and stayed up more than Skenes probably would have liked. However, it had just enough run and dip to catch the underside of Hoerner's barrel. He rapped it sharply to shortstop, 107.3 miles per hour off the bat, but this time with no luck.

Maybe you're worried about me, right now. Maybe you're thinking I mistakenly headlined this Nico Hoerner article with something about Jefferson Rojas. Calm your fears, though. This is very much a Jefferson Rojas article. See, those two batted balls were the only ones Hoerner produced that topped 106 miles per hour last season. On Saturday, in the second game of Cactus League play, Jefferson Rojas matched that number. First, he scalded a line drive to center field to drive in a run, as clean a single as you'll ever see. It perfectly matched Hoerner's maximum exit velocity from 2025, at 108.1 MPH.

Two innings later, he hit another rocket, this time at 106.2 MPH. It had too little air under it, and became a groundout, too, but it's a nifty match for the ball Hoerner hit against Skenes. In Friday's Cactus League opener, he'd also smashed a single at 100.3 MPH, against the White Sox. So far, Rojas only hits the ball hard, and all three of the pitchers against whom he made such solid contact (Kumar Rocker, Cal Quantrill, and Tyler Schweitzer) pitched in the majors last year. 

This is not meant, of course, to directly compare Rojas to Hoerner. They're very different players. Besides, Hoerner managed to pull a ball at 98 MPH from Baker for that double; that makes his hit more impressive than Rojas's. The young shortstop prospect has a lot left to learn. He hit .236/.343/.387 in High A and Double A last season for a reason. 

Still, this is a very pleasing proof of concept. Hoerner has 30-grade game power; it's his only weakness. Rojas, whom FanGraphs nonetheless ranked as the Cubs' top prospect entering this season, is only listed as having 30-grade game power at present. The prospect team at FanGraphs does give Rojas a 50 future grade on power, though, and having seen him step into the box two months shy of his 21st birthday and hit three balls the way he's hit them this weekend, it's fair to say that he's making progress toward that eventual ceiling.

It's important not to get carried away with this kind of comp, but Rojas should remind you a bit of Starlin Castro. There's the same blend of quick hands and sinewy strength as Castro brought right to the big leagues in 2010, at age 20. Massive makeup issues (and, perhaps relatedly, an overly aggressive approach at the plate) stopped Castro from reaching his full potential, but the athleticism of Rojas is very similar, and so far, there are no reports of Rojas being similarly immature and dangerous off the field.

Given the calamitous .164/.279/.205 line he put up in 39 games with Double-A Knoxville last summer, Rojas is surely slated to head back there this spring. However, his upside is beginning to shine against even big-league competition. He could well get back onto the fast track to the majors, with a strong start in Knoxville begetting a June promotion to Iowa. He'll be Rule 5-eligible this fall, so the Cubs have no reason not to let him force his way to the big leagues if this season goes the way he hopes. It's only been two spring games, but he's one of the most important players in the organization, and he's off to a great start in a pivotal season.

Heck, since the infield picture in Chicago is crowded and Hoerner is a free agent this fall, maybe this is kind of a Nico Hoerner article, after all. If this keeps up, Rojas is coming for a spot that currently belongs to Hoerner, but showing he can match Hoerner on the veteran's weakest front is just the first small step toward supplanting him.

View full article

[Jason Ross]

@Matthew Trueblood Want to point out as well the vastly different mechanics that Rojas is showing in the Spring. 

Here is a video from Rojas in July, last summer. He's very upright before he swings. His hands are also much closer to his body. In ST, Rojas has shown a bit more separation of his hands and his body and he's starting more in a crouched, lower stance. 

It was the first thing that jumped off the page when I saw him get into the batters' box.

[We Got The Whole 9]

When I watched his hits yesterday I said, hmm looks like Starlin a bit. 

[Bertz]

One of the most notable things about Rojas is that even when he's struggled he's generally had healthy K/BB/GB numbers.  Given his age you hope that as he gets older he stops getting the bat knocked out of his hand so often.  If this is a sign that his "man strength" came in this winter you can dream on him really taking off this season.

On a similar note Pedro Ramirez hit a ball almost 112 MPH on Friday.  I've for a while thought he's tracking towards a Tommy La Stella kind of outcome with better defense.  If Ramirez had better defense AND his power is a couple grades higher suddenly you're talking about a pretty complete player.

[macarthur31]

Cubs v. Royals 2/23/26

Rojas hits a solo shot - 413' pulled to left field, 30 degree launch angle, 107.5 MPH Exit Velo off of 96.3 MPH.

I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin.

 

[Bertz]

40 minutes ago, macarthur31 said:

Cubs v. Royals 2/23/26

Rojas hits a solo shot - 413' pulled to left field, 30 degree launch angle, 107.5 MPH Exit Velo off of 96.3 MPH.

I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin.

 

Fangraphs in their Top 100 prospects list writeup a few weeks ago noted that Rojas hadnt performed well against velocity.  So I'm maybe more impressed that it came off a 96 MPH fastball than I am that he hit it 413 feet.

[craig]

On 2/22/2026 at 11:40 AM, Jason Ross said:

@Matthew Trueblood Want to point out as well the vastly different mechanics that Rojas is showing in the Spring. 

Here is a video from Rojas in July, last summer. He's very upright before he swings. His hands are also much closer to his body. In ST, Rojas has shown a bit more separation of his hands and his body and he's starting more in a crouched, lower stance. 

It was the first thing that jumped off the page when I saw him get into the batters' box.

That's really interesting observation.  Tweaks like that can make a big difference.  

[Jason Ross]

1 minute ago, craig said:

That's really interesting observation.  Tweaks like that can make a big difference.  

Big difference. Also important that the Cubs don't really tweak a swing for a player until after struggles happen. We can see that with Matt Shaw in 2025, and have seen that with PCA and Amaya in 2024. When players struggle, they go to mechanical fixes, but only then.

Rojas had a pretty tough time when he got to Double-A last year. He's very young, so part of that deals with his age-relative-to-level, but I'm guessing that the Cubs wanted to change a little bit of his mechanics to help give him an edge as well. 

As Matt pointed out, his success this ST has some against players who have seen MLB time, and all have been pitchers who have reached higher levels than Jefferson Rojas, so the success probably isn't nothing even if it's limited. 

[craig]

While Rojas's hitting has been good early, his throwing has been awful. I watched pieces of a couple of the games, and I saw three awful throws, Az Phil mentioned that he actually had a 4th bad throw too.  Has he always been Burl Callaway, or is this something new?  Hopefully something fluky that will get worked out.  Seems like he didn't extend his arm at all on his throws.  

The one throw was up the 1B line into the baserunner's path, and he got poor Jonathon Long's elbow ripped off.  Long was writhing in pain, I hope it won't be real serious, but I won't be surprised if Rojas will cost Long's elbow pretty dearly.   

 

[Jason Ross]

17 minutes ago, craig said:

While Rojas's hitting has been good early, his throwing has been awful. I watched pieces of a couple of the games, and I saw three awful throws, Az Phil mentioned that he actually had a 4th bad throw too.  Has he always been Burl Callaway, or is this something new?  Hopefully something fluky that will get worked out.  Seems like he didn't extend his arm at all on his throws.  

The one throw was up the 1B line into the baserunner's path, and he got poor Jonathon Long's elbow ripped off.  Long was writhing in pain, I hope it won't be real serious, but I won't be surprised if Rojas will cost Long's elbow pretty dearly.   

 

It's spring training. I think we have to remember that everyone is working back into things. I find new mechanics, new pitches, and better statcast as important notes to keep track of, but anything based on things like rust (like batting average, errors, etc) to be just that; rust. Everyone is getting back into it. Rojas has never been a Burl Carroway thrower before, even he's never been gold-glove caliber, either. 

Chalk it up to Spring Training.