Jeremy Tecktiel

Image courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images In his second start in Cubbie blue, Clay Holmes took a perfect game into the sixth and allowed just two total base runners through 6 2/3 innings of work. Still on a pitch restriction while ramping up in his return from the broken fibula, Holmes would have completed seven innings if it were not for a two-out walk to Jordan Walker, likely just not wanting to give in or make a mistake to the Cardinal’s best hitter with first base open and a three-run lead. Game score, a relatively simple metric to quantify a pitcher’s performance, had this as the best start of Clay Holmes career. Granted, that really only encompasses 42 starts over the last two seasons after his transition from the bullpen, but it is still worth noting considering it was his second start with the Cubs and he is still getting back into game shape and knocking the rust off. How has he done it? After throwing his sinker 41% of the time in his first start with the Cubs, that number climbed all the way to 55% against the Cardinals. Holmes threw 35 pitches to right-handed hitters yesterday; a whopping 31 of them were either sinkers (17) or sweepers (14). The most interesting change, however, was his sweeper usage against left-handed hitters. Usually his preferred secondary option, of the 45 pitches he threw to lefties, just one (1!) was a sweeper. In his first start, that number was 14. Instead of throwing the sweeper to lefties, Holmes used his curveball as his primary breaking ball against lefties. Before 2026, he hadn’t thrown a curveball against a lefty since 2021. Aside from the pitch mix itself, two things really stand out so far after Holmes’ pair of starts. First, he is getting more drop on his sinker than he has before. Like, ever. He had never had a drop of more than 30 inches in any game in his career, and he has immediately done so in both of his starts with the Cubs. You may see in the above graphic that this is vertical break including gravity, that is because his induced vertical break is actually down, it’s not in a place it has never been before for him, but it certainly isn’t explaining the increased break. So how is he getting more break on his sinker without necessarily inducing more break? Holmes has dropped his arm angle. Coming into 2026, Holmes had only had four career outings where his arm angle was below 40 degrees on sinkers, with just one of them coming as a starter. Although he made just nine starts before the injury this year, five of them featured arm angles below 40 degrees on the sinker. If you squint, you can see the data point from his first start as a Cub, all the way down in the bottom right at 37.2 degrees, a full degree lower than he has ever been. It appears the Cubs saw this early-season trend and wanted Holmes to lean into it, and I would bet that once the data on his arm angle from 8/14 is released, it will look similar. Why does this matter? Well, that extra break he is getting has helped him get his sinker located where it is most valuable. The vertical strike zone is about 1.5 feet off the ground at the bottom to 3.5 feet at the top. Holmes, like most sinker ballers, thrives when he is living in the bottom half of the zone, as he did for much of his career. The difference in 2025 is very noticeable, not a good trend, and combating that was likely why Holmes had dropped his arm angle early in 2026. Zooming in on 2026, Holmes is back to pounding the bottom of the zone with the Cubs. If you want to live at the bottom of the zone, you can’t do much better than that. Holmes won’t be perfect through five in every start, but if he can continue this trend, he will be exactly what the Cubs need going forward. View full article

Image courtesy of © Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Developing arms is key for any organization looking to win sustainably. As the Chicago Cubs have painfully seen this year, injuries can derail even the best-laid plans. Having a war chest of developable and projectable arms to dip into, whether to use in the majors or as trade pieces, is what good organizations do. Here are some pitchers who improved their stock in July ahead of the trade deadline. And, spoiler alert, unlike the MiLB Hitter of the Month, all of the pitchers featured below are still around. Ranking Cubs' Best Minor League Pitchers In July Honorable Mention: Yoendris Gonzalez - RHP - South Bend Like seemingly every other Cubs pitcher this year, Gonzalez was placed on the IL in March. He started his rehab assignment at the end of May and was in Myrtle Beach by June 13. He had four good outings for Myrtle Beach in June and carried that into July where he put up 10 innings out of the Pelicans bullpen and allowed just two earned runs while striking out 18 and walking just three. Gonzalez was promoted to South Bend by the end of the month. He is a 23-year-old with a fastball that tops 95 and less than 75 total career innings under his belt, making him a pretty intriguing arm to follow. Honorable Mention: Anhuar Garcia - RHP - Myrtle Beach If you know Anhuar Garcia’s name, it is probably not for positive reasons. The 22-year-old was suspended in June of last year for 60 games for testing positive for performance enhancing drugs. He was activated at the end of June and made one appearance for Myrtle Beach before the calendar turned to July. He made seven appearances out of the bullpen and allowed just six hits and five runs in 12 innings. If you remove the one bad appearance he made where he allowed four runs on two homers, he had 10.2 innings of one-run ball with 14 strikeouts, only giving up two hits. He finished the month in the rotation in Myrtle Beach with a solid four-inning start. If he can continue to put up numbers like that while staying out of the news for the wrong reasons, he could be an asset down the line. Third Place: Jackson Brockett - LHP - South Bend A third reliever to get things kicked off. Brockett posted 17 strikeouts to four walks in 13 innings in July for South Bend. Each of his four outings lasted three or more innings and, over his final three outings of July, he had 13 strikeouts over 9.1 innings while giving up just one walk and three singles. He earned a Midwest League Pitcher of the Week award as well. The undrafted free agent continues to have a great season, and would probably be higher on this list had he pitched more than 13 total innings. Runner-up: Ethan Flanagan - LHP - South Bend After a great first professional year in Myrtle Beach last year, Flanagan started the year in South Bend and was… fine. Between April and May, he threw 30 innings, had a 34:10 K:BB ratio, and allowed 13 runs on 33 hits. That is when the Cubs transferred him to the development list on May 24, where he remained until June 21. Whatever they worked on in that month seemed to pay dividends in July. Flanagan threw 20 innings and had a 26:4 K:BB ratio and allowed seven runs on just 13 hits. Batters hit .306 off him in May and .181 in July. Flanagan was a 17th-round pick in 2023, but if he can continue to put outings together like he did last month, the lefty could force his way into the Cubs' future plans. Winner: Brooks Caple - RHP - Knoxville Caple made four starts in Double-A in July and allowed a .613 OPS to opposing hitters in 21 innings of work. He had a 24% strikeout rate and a 6% walk rate and allowed just eight runs total in the month. Caple also spent some time on the development list from 6/23-7/1 after scuffling a bit in three June starts. He came off the DL and rebounded with four pretty solid starts to get back on track. Heading into August, Caple looks to be a front-runner for the organization’s Minor League Pitcher of the Year award. View full article

Image courtesy of © Bill Streicher-Imagn Images July is an incredibly important month for minor leaguers and their value. With the trade deadline looming, a poor performance can sink trade value while a great performance can boost a players' stock. Which hitters helped the Chicago Cubs, and themselves, most in July? Spoiler alert, the top two players on this list are no longer with the organization. Ranking Cubs' Best Minor League Hitters In July Honorable Mention: Jose Escobar - UTIL - South Bend Jose Escobar has put together a really nice season this year, albeit largely under the radar. Promoted to South Bend at the end of May, Escobar slashed .343/.420/.614 in June and followed that up with a .367/.420./520 line in July to land in last month’s edition. Escobar put up that stat line along with just a 14.6% strikeout rate while being a tad young for the level. The diminutive 21-year-old has mostly played left field but has starts at 2B and in RF as well in South Bend. With a strong finish to his solid season, Escobar has likely earned the chance to start his age-22 season at Double-A Knoxville. Third Place: Josiah Hartshorn - OF - South Bend The year of Hartshorn continued in July. The reason he takes home the bronze and not in one of the top two spots this month is a slight drop off in production compared to previous months, but Hartshorn still managed a .256/.393/.453 slash line with an 18.8% strikeout rate and a 16.9% walk rate. His slugging percentage dipped from June but he paired that with a dip in k-rate and an increased walk rate. The switch-hitting teenager also played more on the dirt this month, starting 12 games at 1B and only 8 in RF, the first time this year he has started more games in the infield than the outfield. If you were looking for signs that Hartshorn is hitting a wall in his first professional season, you won’t find any in July. Runner-Up: Brett Bateman - OF - Iowa Bateman wins the runner-up in July largely on the back of a 18-game stretch from July 2 to July 28. He hit safely in 17 of the 18 games, including a 14-game hitting streak. Bateman recorded multiple hits 11 times, scored 22 runs, and hit .416 with just 10 strikeouts and 12 extra-base hits. He entered July slashing .284/.427/.355, which is passable, but then slashed .358/.430/.547 over the month. In his fourth professional season, Bateman has steadily moved up the ladder due to solid strikeout and walk rates and a solid defense/speed combo in the outfield. The Blue Jays clearly bought into the hype, acquiring him (alongside Ty Southisene) in the Kevin Gausman trade. Winner: Jonathon Long - 1B - Iowa Through June, I think the only way to sum up Jonathan Long’s 2026 season was as a disappointment. He was coming off a solid season in Iowa in 2025 and expected to make a bit of a push for the majors, even if he was blocked by Michael Busch. Long followed up an .883 OPS in AAA last year with an .738 OPS entering July. Long proceeded to hit .371/.446/.652 last month, good for a 1.097 OPS with a walk rate of nearly 11%. He had 17 doubles and 7 home runs over the first three months, and 13 doubles and 4 homers in July. He was weighed down by a really poor May, but got fully back on track just in time for the trade deadline. Like Bateman, Long's boosted stock proved useful on the trade block, as he got shipped to Miami (with Jace Beck) in exchange for Braxton Garrett. View full article

Image courtesy of © Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images The 2015 MLB Draft is well represented on the 2026 Cubs roster. Famously, the Cubs have the top two picks from that draft, in Dansby Swanson and Alex Bregman, and they have their own top-10 pick (Ian Happ, who went 9th). Scott Kingery is in Triple-A. (Ok, that one is a stretch.) In addition to three top-10 picks, though, they have two arms from the 2015 draft with lesser-known names in their bullpen. Tyler Ferguson and Trent Thornton have both had very positive numbers with the Cubs so far, but as the deadline approaches, can the Cubs rely on either of these arms in a playoff race? Let’s start with Ferguson. The Cubs sent cash to the Athletics for Ferguson in May after he had been optioned to Triple-A to start the 2026 season. He was a useful member of the A’s bullpen in 2024; he had a 30% strikeout rate and was reliable when it mattered most. When covering innings 7-9 (which was his primary role), he held opponents to a .500 OPS and just 12 runs in 38 1/3 innings that year. In fact, over the last two seasons, Ferguson has been quite a bit better than average in medium- and high-leverage situations. Oddly enough, his problem has been low-leverage situations. Ferguson was at his best in 2024 throwing fastballs 74% of the time, but mixing between four-seamers, sinkers, and cutters. In 2025, he lost 1+ mph on his fastballs and his strikeout rate dropped to 22%, while his walk rate climbed to almost 14%. Ferguson has always had a hard time getting lefties out. His loss of effectiveness on the fastball turned him into a platoon reliever who doesn't get a ton of ground balls or strikeouts and has a high walk rate—a pretty rough combination, which makes it easy to understand why the A’s sold him to the Cubs. The Cubs were desperate in their search for healthy arms and saw a rebound in velocity from Ferguson. Ferguson is obviously due for regression from his 0% walk rate. Can he survive it? His strikeout rate is back to 30%, largely on the back of a new sweeper that he's been throwing. Per Ferguson, he changed his grip and it seems to have made a difference, as he's getting more horizontal movement on the pitch. He's thrown it 20 times since he came back from the minors on June 24, and outside of the home run to Jordan Walker on July 5, opponents are 0-6 with 4 strikeouts against the pitch. Even though the shape has been inconsistent as he gets comfortable with the new grip, he's getting a 60% chase rate on the sweeper. The emergence of the sweeper has made his fastball more effective, too. He has allowed just 2 singles off fastballs since his return from Iowa. Much like Jacob Webb, Ferguson is still experimenting with his pitch mix, especially against left-handed hitters. He's only thrown 17 total pitches to lefties since June 24, but he's thrown more sweepers than changeups in his search for a secondary pitch he can trust against them. Ferguson looks to be back where he was when he was an effective platoon arm for the A’s, but if he can find results against lefties with his new sweeper, he could be more than just a matchup guy for Craig Counsell. That would be an unconventional path to success, but this is the Cubs bullpen. Unconventional paths are the convention. One round ahead of Ferguson in 2015, Trent Thornton went to the Astros. Thornton reached Double-A in his first full season, before being traded to the Blue Jays after the 2018 season. He made the Jays roster out of spring training and made 29 starts in 2019, leading the team in starts. Injuries limited him and moved him to a bullpen role, where he was less effective, before being traded to Seattle in 2023. After lowering his arm slot, he was solid in the bullpen for a couple seasons, but was non-tendered after tearing his Achilles last July. Less than a year later, Thornton has a 2.63 ERA over 27 1/3 innings, a pretty remarkable comeback. Much like Ferguson, Thornton is trying to rebound and find the success of his 2024 season, where he had a 26% strikeout rate and a 6.5% walk rate and limited hard contact at a pretty high level. Unlike Ferguson, he doesn’t look like the same pitcher with a new wrinkle; he looks like a completely different pitcher. His arm angle is now at 46°, up from 35° in 2024 and closer to what it was with the Blue Jays. The good news is that he's getting more ground balls than ever before. The bad news is that his strikeout and walk rates are the lowest and highest of his career, respectively. The decrease in swing-and-miss is evident in both of Thornton’s breaking offerings and his four-seam fastball. Looking at Thornton’s fastball, he has traded swing-and-miss for weak contact and ground balls. With the higher arm slot, Thornton’s whiff rate on the four-seamer is back to the mid-teens, where it was before he lowered his slot. His ground-ball rate of 50% on the four-seamer is far higher than ever in his career, though. Batters’ average launch angle on his fastball is 8°. Last season was the only other time he has been below 17°. Due to putting the ball on the ground, the four-seamer grades out higher per run value than any other season in his career. Thornton’s curveball has a paltry 5% whiff rate this year, the first time in his career it's been below 20%. He's spinning the ball less from his higher arm slot and has lost 2.5 inches of total movement on it. Batters have not yet swung and missed on a curveball in the zone this season. His whiff rate has also dropped on his slider/cutter, but only against lefties. Thornton has had more luck against lefties with both the sweeper and the cutter than he has with the curve, but he's still throwing the curve 32% of the time against lefties. Therein lies the problem; the same problem that plagues multiple pitchers in this Cubs bullpen. How do we get a lefty bat out? Before the season, Matt Trueblood postulated that Thornton may be adding a kick-change to his arsenal. If there is truth to this conspiracy, we haven’t yet seen it, as Thornton has not thrown a single changeup this year. As Matt explains in that article, changeups are a difficult pitch for a supinator like Thornton to throw, and if we haven’t seen it yet, it's probably not coming. Without that pitch (or recapturing the lost movement on his curveball), he looks like another Cubs pen arm who needs to be hidden from lefties. The reality is that both of these 2015 draftees are likely capped in terms of what value they can provide to the 2026 Cubs. Both are nearing their 33rd birthdays and are unlikely to change much or suddenly become good at getting lefties out. Especially in a Murphy’s Law season like the Cubs arms are having, however, these veteran arms filling their role well is sorely needed, for however long it lasts. View full article

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images By most indicators, the Chicago Cubs have the best defense in MLB and the best offense besides that of the Los Angeles Dodgers. It is an impressive group with depth and flexibility, with nine players already reaching 1 WAR before the All-Star Break. Yet, I don’t think most Cubs fans would be overly confident in the team’s chances if the playoffs started today. Understandably so! The pitching staff does not inspire confidence. A position player group like the one on the North Side doesn’t come along every year. Knowing these windows can close faster than expected, the Cubs need to invest in the pitching staff while this window is open. With July here, let’s look at a couple of potential starting pitchers the Cubs might be able to add to their rotation. The Cubs need help all over their pitching staff. As a group, they have the highest home run rate in the league backed up by one of the highest hard-hit rates. They also have below-average strike out and ground ball rates. Not good! It also does not appear internal help is coming. Jameson Taillon is expected to pitch in a rehab game on July 5 but he has been a large part of the problem; expecting him to be a solution here is a fool’s errand. Edward Cabrera is hopefully an August return, but he has also been underwhelming at best. Ben Brown may not be back this year, and who knows what he will look like if he does return; Brown himself said he will need to tweak his mechanics to avoid the injury recurring again. That leaves Shota Imanaga, Colin Rea, Matthew Boyd, and David Peterson as the current Cubs playoff rotation. Again, not good! Injury problems that have plagued him throughout his career have resurfaced for Boyd this season, making him tougher to rely on. Colin Rea is a career back-of-the-rotation starter and swingman who has filled in admirably but is best in that role, where he can be hidden a bit from left-handed hitters. If Justin Steele makes it back, it will reportedly be out of the bullpen. This all leads to my belief that the Cubs truly need to add two legitimate starters this deadline, a very tall task that will require them to be more aggressive than they have been in previous years. With the expanded playoff format, more teams feel they could still contend for a wild-card spot, meaning less teams are willing to sell. That can make it a tough market for true buyers, like the Cubs. The obvious trade candidates, and ones that have been discussed on this site, are guys like Tarik Skubal and Freddy Peralta, upcoming free agents on underperforming teams. There are also the two Angels pitchers, Jose Soriano and Reid Detmers, who have been written about. I'd like to focus on two rental starting pitchers I would like to see the Cubs make a serious run at that should both be attainable, despite their brilliant production this year. Casey Mize While his teammates Tarik Skubal and Jack Flaherty get the majority of the rumors, the Tigers do have a third starter set to hit free agency this offseason. The former No. 1 overall pick is having his best season yet as he approaches free agency. The Cubs will likely have to spend this year in free agency for pitching. This problem isn’t going away; they don’t have multiple impact arms in the upper-minors ready to come back and make an impact. Cade Horton is coming off his second Tommy John surgery and Justin Steele is a question mark, so relying on them in the rotation next year is not prudent. Trading for Mize now allows the Cubs a few months to court him and potentially extend him before he hits the open market. Mize has a 90th percentile, 5.5% walk rate that would play very nicely in front of this defense. He has done a great job of limiting hard contact and keeping the ball in the park. He has sacrificed velocity on his fastball in favor of spin efficiency and it has worked well. His fastball has increased vertical movement and in doing so has increased the swing and miss rate by six percentage points while dropping the hard-hit rate by 22% points. That uptick in vertical movement has also caused batters to be under the fastball 57% of the time, up from 45-46% the past couple of years. The Tigers will almost certainly give him a qualifying offer, which means the Cubs need to offer more than the value of a compensation draft pick for Mize. The Tigers' run differential shows they have been a bit unlucky this season after an ALDS run last year, likely meaning they don’t plan on a full rebuild and are focused on major-league ready players and prospects. Their offense has struggled this year, though; perhaps an offer around a package of James Triantos and Kevin Alcantara would entice them to part with Mize. Sonny Gray The veteran right-hander continues to perform at a high level despite the Red Sox's struggles this year. Boston traded for him to bolster their rotation for an expected playoff run, but their dormant offense has made any playoff run unlikely, and subsequently made Gray available. Gray pairs a 6.2% walk rate with a 47.5% ground-ball rate, both in the top 25% of major league pitchers. It isn’t hard to see how that would play well in front of the Cubs' defense. Gray will add a steadying presence to the rotation, as he has made at least 22 starts every year since 2014 and has allowed a FIP over 4.00 in just three of those 14 seasons (and only once outside of his Yankees seasons. Gray does come with a mutual option for next season, but he's a virtual lock to reach free agency. The Red Sox seem to have pitching depth going forward with Garret Crochet, Ranger Suarez, Payton Tolle, Connelly Early, and even Brayan Bello, but they are struggling with middle infield depth. A package centered around Pedro Ramirez, who doesn’t have a clear path to playing time with Alex Bregman, Dansby Swanson, and Nico Hoerner entrenched in the infield, might be able to get the job done. View full article

Image courtesy of © Dan Powers/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Another month, another test of the Cubs' organizational pitching depth that underscores the need for development on the farm. One returning name and three new ones found their way into this month’s edition of MiLB pitcher of the month consideration, including a couple at the higher levels. Ranking Cubs' Best Minor League Pitchers in June Honorable mentions Will Sanders - RHP - Iowa Sanders struggled in Iowa before hitting the IL mid-April, but upon his return, he was really good in 4 starts in June. He allowed just 6 runs over 21 innings, going at least 5 innings in each start. He had a 28% strikeout rate and a 5% walk rate and allowed a .185/.270/.354 slash line. With the amount of injuries the Cubs have been through, Sanders will be in Wrigley before long, if he keeps up what he did in June. Pierce Coppola - LHP - Myrtle Beach Coppola was my runner-up in May after a quality debut, and he was just as good in June. Over 4 starts he allowed a .179/.292/.232 slash line, with a 29% strikeout rate. He lowered his walk rate for the second straight month, this time to 12%. I would imagine a move to South Bend is right around the corner for the big lefty. Runner-up Jace Beck - RHP - Knoxville Jace Beck was drafted in the 22nd round of the 2019 draft by the Mets. That's a round that no longer exists. He spent 6 seasons (7 years, if you count 2020) in the minor leagues for the Mets, but never made it to Double-A. You don’t see that often! He elected free agency after last season, and the Cubs scooped him up and sent him to Knoxville. While he was solid in April and May, he found a new level in June. He made 5 multi-inning appearances, including 3 starts, and allowed just 1 run over 19 innings with a 47% (!!!) strikeout rate. He finished the month with back-to-back starts of 5 innings and 10+ strikeouts. Winner Jackson Brockett - RHP - South Bend Jackson Brockett was a 4-year starter at Nebraska, but he went undrafted last summer before signing a free agent deal with the Cubs before spring training this year. He was incredible in June for South Bend, allowing a .136/.149/.167 slash line to opposing hitters with a 27% strikeout rate and a walk rate barely over 1%. To put those numbers in perspective, over five multi-inning outings in the month, he allowed one walk and just 2 extra-base hits to the 67 batters he faced. Across two levels, he has a 1.29 ERA in 49 innings backed up by a 25% strikeout rate and a 6.5% walk rate. Brockett is certainly opening eyes, even if he'll have to work hard to prove he's more than an org guy. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images Drafts are primarily judged on their first-round picks. Finding more than three big-league contributors in a draft is cause for celebration; most classes yield that many or fewer. Thus, if a team doesn’t find value at the top, it faces an uphill climb to be a fruitful draft. The Cubs signed 19 of their 20 picks in last year’s draft, but their first-round pick, Ethan Conrad, is just making his pro debut this week. Without knowing what he will look like as he comes back from a shoulder injury that ended his last collegiate season, though, the Cubs still have to be pretty excited about how the 2025 draft class is shaping up. With Conrad and Colton Book (9th round) having not yet debuted and Connor Spencer (12th round) out for the season, I am using three tiers here to split the remaining 16 players: MLB prospects, fringe prospects, and organizational players. The draft class is showing a lot of promise, with three legit MLB prospects before their first round pick even debuts. With a relatively weak farm system, it looks like it was a much-needed infusion of talent. MLB Prospects 2nd round: Kane Kepley The Tar Heels outfielder and our No. 7 Cubs prospect has put together a really nice season in South Bend in 2026. Kepley has been almost exactly the player he was in college, sporting a low strikeout rate (13%) and a high walk rate (21%). Even if he never develops major-league average power, a true plus center fielder who doesn’t strike out, gets on base, and wreaks havoc when he does (39 stolen bases in just 67 games) looks like a player with a floor of fourth outfielder—a definite major-league contributor, and one whose best season is almost sure to be worthy of regular playing time. 4th round: Kaleb Wing The Cubs went over-slot to sign Wing, a high-school arm who saw a velo jump in his draft year. Prep arms take patience, but Wing is showing real glimpses in Myrtle Beach in his first pro season. He has a 33% strikeout rate over 6 starts and 16 1/3 quality innings. He has a long way to go, as evidenced by a 16% walk rate, but he has the stuff to make an impact on the big-league club someday. 6th round: Josiah Hartshorn Cubs fans may come to remember this draft as the Josiah Hartshorn draft. The 19-year-old outfielder flew through Low-A, walking more than he struck out with an .884 OPS, on his way to South Bend, where he continued to impress. He has an OPS over 1.000 while being over 3 years younger than the league average. It looks like the Cubs absolutely nailed this pick. They went out on a limb and paid him more than anyone has ever paid a 6th-rounder before, at $2 million. They could trade him today for a solid $15 million in value, if it came to that, so the investment has already been a titanic success. Fringe Prospects 3rd round: Dominick Reid Reid has started 12 games for Myrtle Beach and has posted a 23% strikeout rate with a 9% walk rate over 49 2/3 innings. You’d like to see sexier numbers for a college draftee in Low-A, but it could be worse. He doesn’t have premium velocity, so development of his breaking stuff is going to be necessary if he is going to have a chance at big-league innings. 7th round: Pierce Coppola Coppola has posted a nearly 35% strikeout rate over 9 starts and 36 innings in Myrtle Beach, but it comes with a 13.6% walk rate. The good news is, that's down from a 23.6% walk rate in his first taste of pro ball last year while doubling his groundball rate year over year. If the 6-foot-8 left-hander can keep improving his walk rate, he could make the Cubs look pretty smart. 8th round: Jake Knapp At almost 25 years old, Jake Knapp was the oldest player in the draft class, but he was also the 2025 ACC Pitcher of the Year. The Cubs sent him to Double-A Knoxville for his pro debut, where he has a 24.5% strikeout rate and a 14% walk rate. He had just a 4% walk rate in his draft year at UNC, but it has spiked in pro ball. If he can recapture the strike-throwing ability he showed in college, he could enter the next tier. 11th round: Eli Jerzembeck I am putting Jerzembeck in this tier largely on the back of his pedigree. A top prospect out of high school in the 2022 draft, Jerzembeck made the decision to go to South Carolina. After a solid freshman year, he just could not stay healthy and missed back-to-back seasons. He had not pitched in two full years when the Cubs took him in the 2025 draft. He's thrown 27 2/3 innings in 2026 and posted a 26.7% strikeout rate across both levels of A-ball. Having not pitched in two years, his walk rate is understandably high, but if he can recapture the strike-throwing ability he showed pre-injury as he knocks more of the rust off, he could be a real steal in the 11th round. Organizational Players 5th round: Kade Snell This pick doesn’t look awesome. Snell had a career 8% strikeout rate in the SEC, but has seen his strikeout rate soar north of 25% this season in South Bend. Pair that with a .336 slugging average and it's hard to see him making an impact at the big-league level. 10th round: Justin Stransky Maybe the hardest player to place on this list, Stransky has matching 15.7% strikeout and walk rates while throwing 27% of runners out from behind the plate. He is running a .237 BABIP (as much an indicator of contact quality as of luck, when you're in the minors) and hasn’t shown much power, but the offensive bar is low for catchers. If the Cubs like the way he handles pitching staffs, he could be in the next tier already for them. 13th round: Nate Williams Another player who was relatively hard to place, Nate Williams has a 5.82 era out of the South Bend bullpen this season. His peripheral numbers look a bit better, though, with a 27% strikeout rate and some bad batted-ball luck. Still, he looks unlikely to be anything more than a Quad-A reliever. 14th round: Kaemyn Franklin Franklin is not off to a good pro start with a 27% walk rate and 2 home runs given up over 3 2/3 innings in rookie ball. 15th round: Noah Edders Noah Edders is actually off to a pretty solid pro start, with a 26% strikeout rate and a 6% walk rate this season, but he's a little old for the level in Myrtle Beach and the Cubs leaving him there in 2026 after 5 quality innings in 2025 speaks volumes about how they view him. 16th round: Riley Hunsaker Hunsaker has not been very good this season, with an ERA over 5.00 as a 23-year-old in A ball. He has an 8% walk rate but just a 21% strikeout rate and is giving up a lot of hits. Guys who don’t miss bats at that level generally aren’t prospects. 17th round: Logan Poteet Logan Poteet, like fellow catcher Justin Stransky, is hard to place. He's playing well in A-ball, with a .938 OPS, but he is slightly old for the level and has a 31.6% strikeout rate. 18th round: Connor Knox Knox has thrown only 7 2/3 innings in his debut season so far, but there might be a reason. He has a WHIP of almost 2.00 and an 18% walk rate as a 22-year-old in A-ball. 20th round: Freddy Rodriguez Rodriguez has been pretty solid for a 20th-round pick, albeit in rookie ball. He has a 26% strikeout rate and a 9% walk rate in 27 1/3 innings, but keeping him in rookie ball means the Cubs probably don’t view him as much more than an organizational arm. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images As we near July and get into the full swing of trade season, it's worth going back and looking at the 2025 trade deadline to review how it went for the Cubs. Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins were busy, making four trades on deadline day last year in an effort to bolster their championship hopes. Let’s go through them one by one. Trade 1: Cubs get: RHP Andrew Kittredge Orioles get: INF Wilfri De La Cruz Kittredge was exactly what the Cubs hoped for when they acquired him. He provided 21 2/3 quality innings over the final two months and appeared in five of the Cubs' eight playoff games, even starting one game as an opener. Contending team trades lottery ticket for non-contending team’s reliever is among the most common trade archetypes, and that is exactly was this was. De La Cruz has been ok in his stateside debut this season at 18 years old, walking more than he has struck out but not doing a whole lot else. This trade will truly take years to evaluate, but I will call this a win for the Cubs, right now. They understood the risks and got what they paid for. Trade 2: Cubs get: RHP Michael Soroka Nationals get: SS Ronny Cruz and OF Christian Franklin A former top prospect who reached the majors at 20 years old but constantly struggled to stay healthy, Soroka was the only starter of the three pitchers the Cubs acquired. He had a solid if unspectacular first half in Washington, but he started 16 games after not having started more than 10 since 2019, his lone All-Star season. He started exactly one game in a Cubs uniform before coming out after two innings and going on the IL until mid-September, when he came back for a few appearances out of the bullpen. Luckily, the Nationals' return has not been overwhelming since the trade. Ronny Cruz is scuffling in High-A this season with a sky-high strikeout rate. Christian Franklin was in Iowa last season and remains in Triple-A this season for the Nationals. It doesn’t look like he will be making much of an impact in the big leagues, and he would not have a role on this Cubs team. Call this one incomplete, because Soroka has pitched really well in 2026 with Arizona. Had he stayed healthy, he would have been exactly what the Cubs were looking for, but knowing the health risks, the Cubs did not give up too much. Trade 3: Cubs get: UTIL Willi Castro Twins get: RHP Ryan Gallagher and RHP Sam Armstrong The Cubs got in on the Twins' fire sale when they snagged Willi Castro to bolster their bench. It did not go as they had hoped. Castro really struggled on the North Side, with a .170/.245/.240 slash line in 110 plate appearances. He was on the playoff roster, but did not get a plate appearance despite coming in to two games. Gallagher is a 23-year-old who has spent the bulk of this season in Triple-A for the Twins, with some pretty rough results over his 10 starts. Armstrong, 25, has made 14 starts at Double-A this year, with pretty average results. Castro was not good in a Cubs uniform and, although Gallagher and Armstrong have not been good, the Cubs probably wish they still had two extra depth arms in the upper minor leagues this season. It isn’t a disaster, but it probably isn’t one the Cubs would make again, with hindsight. Trade 4: Cubs get: LHP Taylor Rogers Pirates get: OF Ivan Brethowr A steady presence out of the bullpen, the Cubs got the lefty Rogers twin from the Pirates. While he was not terrible, he got bit by the home run bug a little bit in his 17 2/3 innings of work in Cubbie blue, giving up four long balls. He pitched only one inning in the playoffs. Brethowr, a college outfielder who was drafted in 2024 in the 7th round, was in High-A for the Cubs at the time of the trade, with an OPS just north of .700. He has played 22 games in Double-A for the Pirates with a .624 OPS in 2026. The Cubs did not risk a lot in this trade to bring in the veteran, and although he didn’t pitch all that well for the Cubs, it is unlikely to come back to bite them. After a year, the Cubs' deadline looks a bit like a wash. None of the four players they acquired remain in the organization, and only Kittredge made any real impact in the playoff run. They did not give up much value, but they also did not get the playoff impact they were hoping for. If the Cubs are looking for players at this year’s deadline who will impact their playoff run, they may have to give up a little more value from what is a fairly weak farm system. View full article