4 Players Who Could Outperform Projections for the Chicago Cubs in 2025

First of all, Hoyer wasn't wrong when he said that. It just wasn't well said. It was poorly said, actually. If he had used the word "breakout," then everything's fine and dandy. All contending teams have guys who break out and perform at a higher level than expected. So let's identify the breakout candidates, as it were, instead of getting lost in the projection sauce.

Candidate 1: Michael Busch
Busch projects for a .236/.322/.416 slash with 22 home runs. He was higher last season, particularly with a .440 slugging average. Now, projections are always going to be lower on an inexperienced player like Busch, but is it simply hopium to think he'll improve at age 27?

Busch has a great plate approach and controls the strike zone well. His 11% walk rate for 2024 was in the 85th percentile in the majors. Clearly, he will take a pitch, always a good thing to do when trying to break out. His swing decisions, though, led to a 28% strikeout rate. He's not chasing; he's only in the 28th percentile for his whiff percentage. Busch needs to make more contact in the zone in order to beat his projections, and maybe get more aggressive in the process.

He's always been a higher BABIP guy, because when he does make contact, he catches the launch-angle sweet spot 75% of the time. There's a 30-homer, .260 average with an .800 OPS to unlock here. Basically, he needs to continue to control the strike zone as he has, but make more contact within the zone. Increasing his bat speed is the key here. He's in the bottom quarter of the league in this metric. Doing this (and thus increasing the number of times wood strikes rawhide) would make Busch a borderline All-Star.

Candidate 2: Cade Horton
In 2023, I had tickets to a Myrtle Beach Pelicans game where a certain first-round pick was scheduled to debut. Unfortunately, the rain came, and I missed the chance to see Cade Horton's first start in the pros. You probably don't care about that. What you should care about is this: Horton seems to be healthy heading into the season. 

Steamer projects a whopping one inning in the major leagues for the prospect, whose star dimmed a bit due to his lost 2024. You already know about the fastball that sits 96 and one of the top-rated sliders in the minor leagues. The pedigree and potential are well established. How successfully his health rebounds (and how he's utilized) will determine whether and by how much he exceeds those projections.

If he's healthy, we could be looking at a rookie season similar to the Mariners' George Kirby's in 2022. While Horton probably won't hit 130 innings, if he can have 15 starts at five innings apiece while missing bats against big-league batters, the Cubs would be adding a playoff-level starter for the stretch run. 

Seeing news like this and this makes this prospect doubter just a little aflutter with excitement for the possibilities that Horton flashed in 2023. The Cubs clearly believe in him. It's up to the shoulder and arm to avoid barking, to allow Horton to be the dawg the Cubs need him to be.

Candidate 3: Vidal Bruján
Look, he has not been a great hitter. He also might not stick on the team. But if Bruján (he of the former top-100 prospect pedigree and blazing speed that maybe, just maybe, might come back, and defensive versatility) can tap into his talent, this would be a big deal. The cost is so low, and the projections so lousy, that if he can shake off the Marlins Musk, he could become a positive contributor for years at a cheap cost. He can play outfield and almost anywhere on the infield. 

I don't buy it either. Let's just move on.

Candidate 4: Jordan Wicks
Wicks wasn't bad in the beginning of last season. In seven starts, he struck out 19.8% of opposing batters and ran a 4.70 ERA. Of his first five starts, in just one did he give up more than two runs. This was right around the level of production he flashed in 2023. After an oblique injury, he lost some velocity and was not the same pitcher, resulting in an unsightly ERA and many fans eliminating him from their minds as an option moving forward.

This would be a mistake. Don't look at his Statcast; it's a sea of blue (red is good, blue not-so-good). Last year, he lost the ability to generate soft contact. Wicks' soft contact rate was cut in half from 2023 to last season. Projections do have him as a high-3s or low-4s ERA guy for this season. If Wicks can exceed this and become a reliable fourth starter, the Cubs have yet another cromulent rotation piece.

This is not a stats-based prediction. It's meatbally and narrative-based. Pitchers don't develop in an orderly, linear progression. Maybe Wicks can find a fastball that works, at long last, after a couple of false starts in terms of blending shape and speed with the ability to reliably execute. Perhaps his new fitness level (seriously, dude got CUT this offseason) will cause the velocity to tick back up more easily. Don't sleep on a former top-100 prospect who was drafted in the first round. He could reach his ceiling this year.

So there's four guys, any of whom (if they do better than what FanGraphs projects) would be of huge benefit to the Cubs. They might not click; projections tend to be better than our fan-shaded hearts. But these are four guys to watch to see if Jed Hoyer has been right all along.