2026-27 Offseason Cubs Top Prospects Lists

[CaliforniaRaisin]

Bryan Smith did BA's list this year: https://www.baseballamerica.com/teams/2005chicago-cubs/prospects/

1. Josiah Hartshorn
2. Owen Ayers
3. Kane Kepley
4. Cade Townsend
5. Ethan Conrad
6. Jaxon Wiggins
7. Caden Sorrell
8. Kaleb Wing
9. Myles Bailey
10. Brooks Caple

[Outshined_One]

I usually like BA's Cubs lists for including one or two random low level IFA types, leading to offseason intrigue and discussion of whether or not the ranking was merited.

This list is just dull.

[Bertz]

That's a really talented list.  I have mentioned this before, but I think there's a distinction between the Cubs' low ranked farms in like 2019 vs 2022.  Late in the Theo era the farm was Hoerner/Davis/Amaya/Marquez and barely anything behind them.  Early in the Jed era, post 2016 selloff, the farm was still ranked low, but because everyone was a million miles away, NOT because there weren't any good players.

This list is closer to the latter than the former IMO.

Edited 14 hours ago by Bertz

[CaliforniaRaisin]

1 hour ago, Outshined_One said:

I usually like BA's Cubs lists for including one or two random low level IFA types, leading to offseason intrigue and discussion of whether or not the ranking was merited.

This list is just dull.

Boring but probably accurate since Bryan has better connections to the Cubs system than anyone at BA since Jim Callis' days.

If you want some other names from Bryan's chat, he seems to like Jaims Martínez and Dylan Blomker. Had Chase Meyer just missing his top 10 and thinks Meyer, Jubrayker Salay and Luke Alwood are the big sleepers for 2027. Link to chat: https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/chicago-cubs-2027-mlb-prospects-chat/

[CaliforniaRaisin]

1 minute ago, Bertz said:

That's a really talented list.  I have mentioned this before, but I think there's a distinction between the Cubs' low ranked farms in like 2019 vs 2022.  Late in the Theo era the farm was Hoerner/Davis/Amaya/Marquez and barely anything behind them.  Early in the Jed era, post 2016 selloff, the farm was still ranked low, but because everyone was a million miles away, NOT because there weren't any good players.

This list is closer to the former than the latter IMO.

Yeah, 5 of the top 10 are already at AA at least. 4 of the other 5 were college picks so you have more intel on them than prep/IFA A-ballers.

[Jason Ross]

What I also like about the list is that there are at least 8 or 9 guys on this list who have a lot in ways of "ceiling". It's a low ranked system but there's upside here. I'm okay with that.

[Tangled Up in Plaid]

Barring Hartshorn going Konnor Griffin, only two graduate candidates with Ayers and Wiggins. And I'm not sure how likely either is at this point.