The Biggest Winners and Losers in the Cubs’ Farm System in 2026

[Sam Caulder]

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

With the minor-league baseball season approaching its end, now feels like a good time to zoom out and look at the Chicago Cubs’ farm system as a whole. There was a lot of action across the organization this year, whether it was prospects making their way to the major leagues, players being moved at the trade deadline, or young players taking another step in their development. Some players and teams took advantage of their opportunities, while others struggled to find the consistency they were looking for. So with that, let’s take a look at some of the biggest winners and losers from the Cubs’ farm system this year, starting with the winners.

The biggest winner, in my opinion, has to be the Cubs’ High-A affiliate, the South Bend Cubs. South Bend dominated over the first half of their season, finishing with a 39-23 record. That was good enough to win the Midwest League West Division and put the Cubs in position to make a run at a championship.

Things continued to go pretty well for South Bend during the second half, although their season ultimately came to an end in the playoffs against the Kansas City Royals’ High-A affiliate, the Quad Cities River Bandits. Still, it was a very successful season for the Cubs, especially considering the amount of talent that came through the roster throughout the year.

South Bend was led by top prospects Josiah Hartshorn and Ethan Conrad, giving Cubs fans plenty of reasons to be excited about what could be coming next. Minor league wins and losses obviously aren’t the most important thing when it comes to player development, but having a team like South Bend put together a season like this is still encouraging. That makes them an easy choice as one of the biggest winners in the Cubs’ farm system this year.

The other big winner for me is catcher Owen Ayers. I honestly didn’t want to include Ayers here since I just talked about him in my biggest prospect risers and fallers piece, but his performance this season is worth mentioning again.

Ayers started the year outside of North Side Baseball’s top 20 prospects, but he’ll end the season inside the top five and even has an outside chance of earning a September callup to Chicago. Across 121 games between High-A, Double-A and Triple-A, Ayers is slashing .295/.408/.539, good for a .947 OPS. He has also collected 54 extra-base hits and 13 stolen bases while showing a much more well-rounded offensive game than he had in previous seasons.

That’s particularly impressive when you consider that Ayers’ calling card up to this point had been his defense. The bat has always been the biggest question surrounding his prospect status, and he answered a lot of those questions this year. No individual prospect improved their stock more than Ayers, and if this performance continues, we should be seeing him in Chicago very soon.

As for the losers, we’re going with the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate, the Iowa Cubs. While it certainly didn’t help that players like Pedro Ramirez and Kevin Alcantara weren’t with the team for a good chunk of the season, it’s still not a particularly encouraging sign when your Triple-A team finishes the year with a 59-81 record.

Iowa finished just one game under .500 last season, so taking a major step backward this year is certainly disappointing. There was no shortage of talent on the roster, either, particularly on the pitching staff. Jaxon Wiggins, Will Sanders and trade deadline addition Braxton Garrett were among the pitchers who spent time with Iowa, giving the team plenty of intriguing names to work with.

Unfortunately, the results simply weren’t there. There is obviously plenty of context that goes into a minor league team’s record, especially at the Triple-A level where rosters can change constantly. But when a team has that much talent and still struggles to put together a winning season, it’s hard not to view Iowa as one of the bigger losers in the Cubs’ farm system this year.

And then the other loser I’ll mention is the Cubs’ Single-A affiliate, the Myrtle Beach Pelicans. Maybe I’m being overly critical by talking about the performance of a Single-A team, but the Pelicans finished the year with a 50-77 record, and it’s not as though they were lacking prospect talent.

Kaleb Wing, Caden Sorrell, Juan Cabada, and other members of the Cubs’ top 20 prospects spent a good portion of their seasons with Myrtle Beach. Between injuries, poor performance, and promotions to higher levels, though, the Pelicans struggled to put everything together.

Obviously, there’s plenty of development still to come for the players on this roster. Nobody on the Myrtle Beach roster is particularly close to making an impact at the major league level, and there’s no reason to make any sweeping conclusions based on one difficult Single-A season. Still, it does show that there’s some work to be done with a number of these young players.

But those are my farm system winners and losers for the Cubs this season. Let me know in the comments who you would add or remove from this list!

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