Chicago Cubs Select Myles Bailey with the 75th Pick In 2026 MLB Draft

The Chicago Cubs selected Myles Bailey with the 75th pick in the 2026 MLB Draft Saturday afternoon. Bailey is a first baseman, formerly of the University of Florida State. The slot value for the pick in the MLB draft is $1,120,900. The Cubs were awarded the 75th pick in the draft for losing Kyle Tucker to the Los Angeles Dodgers in free agency. Last year, Bailey hit .363 with 13 home runs. He was ranked #83 on MLB Pipeline, unranked (given a 40 FV) on Eric Logenhagen of FanGraphs' "The Board", and #67 according to Baseball America. Using Jamie Cameron's consensus board, he was our No. 96th-ranked prospect. Jamie had this to say about him:

"Bailey has the best raw power in the entire class. His average EV and EV90 are top of the scale. He was torching non-conference play to the tune of 13 home runs (a .913 SLG) in his first 26 games before a serious ankle injury resulted in surgery and the end of his season. Raw power isn't Bailey's only asset. He's a good athlete and has an excellent approach. He followed up a 13.7 BB% in 2025 with a 28.7 BB% in 2026. Additionally, he just doesn't expand the strike zone, with a 98th percentile chase rate. The profile does come with serious swing and miss concerns, however. Bailey registered a K% over 30% in 2025 and has some of the worst whiff and in-zone whiff percentages in D1 baseball. He's likely destined to stick at 1B in pro ball. He has an unusually diverse range of outcomes for a college prospect, but the power upside is huge."

Strengths

Power, power, and more power; the kid has thump. The kid has so much thump that Baseball America ranked his power tops in college baseball this year with other hitters such as Ace Reece, Logan Hughes and Ryder Helfrick, who all went above him in the draft as first-round selections. His 13 home runs on the year might not sound impressive until you realize he missed much of the year due to injury and only played in 26 games. That’s an insane amount of in-game power.

Bailey has a violent left-handed swing and uses his 6’4” frame with every ounce of his body, but the swing is controlled violence. It doesn’t have a ton of movement or extras in it. It’s a small leg kick and not a lot of hand loading. This is good; coming to the pros from a mechanically strong position is excellent. 

We’ll get into his issues later, but one thing to note: Bailey strikes out a lot. The positive? Roboscout, which uses statcast data, including whiff rates, chase rates, etc., thinks that Myles Bailey is a stud. They rank him as the second-best hitter in the 2026 draft from the college ranks and has him projected as a 120 wRC+ hitter behind just Daniel Jackson. Last year, Roboscout loved Andrew Fischer despite the K-issues and the Brewers seem to have a bit of a steal with him. This is much more of a “fun” scouting than one we should bank too hard into, but it’s a fun thought and shows just how good the pop is.

Approach-wise, Bailey has started to take a ton of walks. Some of this is likely college pitchers scared to pitch anything within a mile of the hitter, but you cannot ignore the improvement. Bailey walked 32 times in 245 PA’s as a freshman, but saw his walks balloon to 30 in just 122 PA’s as a sophomore. There’s whiffs, but there’s multiple ways he can impact an offense as well, which helps to mitigate that. 

Another thing to note: Bailey is very young. He played 56 games during his age-19 freshman season at FSU and hit 19 tanks. He is only draft eligible because he’s just celebrated a birthday making him eligible for the draft. Because of the age, you can be a little more patient and likely think that there’s the possibility to maturity at the plate naturally to help smooth some of the rough edges.

Weaknesses

The biggest issue (as alluded to earlier) in Myles Bailey's profile is that for all of the power he has, he has a ton of swing and miss in his game. During his freshman campaign, the slugger whiffed 76 times in just 56 games. And while the K issues got better this year, he still struck out 30 times in 26 games. Kids with potential 70-grade power don’t sit around the draft until the 75th pick unless there’s a red flag, and the contact issues are very real. As much as I want to see these cleaned up, whiff issues can be some of the hardest clean-ups out there. It’s likely this will be his Achilles’ heel.

On top of that, while Bailey moves well for his size, he’s going to be limited to first base. What this means is that his pathway to MLB relevancy is narrow, even before we worry about the whiffs. For him to maintain any sort of prospect status, he basically has to show up to the organization and never stop hitting. That’s such an impossibly high bar to clear, but it’s the life of first base prospects and just comes with the territory.

Overall

Myles Bailey is a big swing of a prospect, both in the literal sense and the figurative one. The best version of Bailey is a three-outcome slugger who hits 30 or more home runs, strikes out a bunch and walks a ton. The worst version of Myles Bailey is a guy who strikes out a ton and never makes it past Knoxville at Double-A. There’s a massive variance in outcomes, but he’s a fun lottery ticket regardless.

Bailey will likely require more than slot to sign, as well. Despite being ranked a little lower from some publications than where the Cubs snatched him up at, he’s very young and has the leverage. We shouldn’t worry about him signing, as the Cubs’ wouldn’t have picked him if that was an issue, but if you were hoping the org was going to grab some guys later with major over-slots, they probably won’t get any help doing that with this pick.

Check out our 2026 mock draft board, updated regularly, and with detailed player write-ups!