How good were Chicago Cubs position players in high school?

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Kris Bryant / Chicago Cubs (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images) /

Some Chicago Cubs players were destined for greatness from a very early age. Other’s followed more of the underdog career arc on their journey to the Show.

Before they wore Cubs blue, several common denominators probably connected every current Chicago Cubs position player.

They woke up early to go to high school, sat through six or seven hours of learning and then laced up the spikes and put on the glove to play baseball on a team where they were likely the star.

Certainly, not every baseball player who was a stud in high school is destined for MLB greatness. Most don’t ever make it that far and if they do it’s much more likely that they become a blip on the radar of a 100+ year old game than a guy who rewrites the game’s history in any significant way.

With about four notable exceptions, the current Chicago Cubs position player squadron consists of guys who weren’t highly heralded in the recruiting department in high school.

Here’s some things to note before carrying on with the content.

College baseball isn’t nearly as scrutinized or marketed as college basketball or football. So high school baseball prospect rankings aren’t nearly as mainstream as the other two sports. PerfectGame.org has the best database for rankings. BaseballFactory.com also has pretty good information although their database only goes back to 2010 (they randomly don’t have 2012 in their database either).
Jason Kipnis and Willson Contreras weren’t in either database.
High school baseball information is much less available than the same information pertaining to basketball and baseball.

Recruiting rankings mean little if you are willing to work hard to get better.

Considering there are many multiple thousands of guys playing baseball at the high school level, maybe you aren’t exactly an underdog if you’re ranked among the 200 best.

But, considering how Anthony Rizzo panned out at the MLB level, he was far from one of those guys who peaked athletically in high school.

Rizzo and Nico Hoerner (#166) are the most heralded guys on the list. The rest basically went from relative nobody’s in high school, continued to get better, and eventually made it to the highest level.

Victor Caratini, Daniel Descalso, David Bote, and Ian Happ weren’t ranked in PerfectGame.org top 1000 players in high school.

Victor Caratini:

Played baseball in Coamo, Puerto Rico

Perfect Game: N/R

Daniel Descalso:

Saint Francis High School in Mountain View, California

MVP of his league in high school

Attended UC Davis

Perfect Game: N/R

Nico Hoerner:

Head-Royce School in Oakland, California

Four-time All-League selection and two-time league MVP; MaxPreps.org small school Player of the Year for California.

Batted .517 with six homers and 30 RBI as a senior

Perfect Game: #166

Anthony Rizzo:

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida

Perfect Game: #160

Kyle Schwarber:

Middletown High School in Middletown, Ohio

Batted .474 with eight homers and a .643 batting average as a senior. Co-Player of the Year in his league.

Played for Indiana University

Perfect Game: #385

Ian Happ:

Mt. Lebanon High School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Two-time All-Section selection by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, WPIAL All-Star and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette All-Star accolades senior season.

.449 career average with 33 doubles, five triples, 12 home runs and 65 RBI in four seasons.

Attended the University of Cincinnati

Perfect Game: N/R

Baseball Factory: N/R

Steven Souza Jr.

Cascade High School in Everett, Washington

Perfect Game: #308

David Bote:

Erie High School in Erie, Colorado and Faith Christian Academy in Arvada, Colorado

State champion

Attended Liberty University and Neosho Community College

Perfect Game: N/R

Baseball Factory: N/R

The star was shining bright early for these current Chicago Cubs players.

Is it a surprise to anybody that Kris Bryant and Javier Baez always had that star factor?

Probably not.

However, maybe because he didn’t come up in the Cubs organization seeing how good Jason Heyward was in high school might be a little bit of a surprise.

He was selected 14th overall in the 2007 MLB draft by his hometown Atlanta Braves who had secretly been scouting him for years while he was still in high school. He chose to go professional instead of accepting offers from baseball powerhouses such as UCLA, Clemson, and Georgia Tech.

Again, because he was in the Cubs system all along fans might remember how good of a prospect Albert Almora was coming up. He was one of the first high draft picks of the Cubs rebuild era.

Although he hasn’t panned out quite as nicely as the others (although doing that would be a tall order for any player), Almora has played over 450 games in a Cubs uniform. Having staying power in the MLB is an accomplishment in of itself and should justify where Almora went in the draft.

Kris Bryant:

Bonanza High School in Las Vegas, Nevada

USA Today All-USA Baseball First Team; Aflac and Baseball America All-American team selections, Nevada Player of the Year as a senior,

.489 batting average with 22 home runs as a senior

Attended the University of San Diego

Baseball Factory: #12

Perfect Game: #39

Average: 25.5

Javier Baez:

Arlington Country Day School in Jacksonville, Florida

According to an old MaxPreps.com profile on Baez, he hit .771 as a senior with 22 homers and 20 doubles with 52 runs batted in.

Baseball Factory: #13

Perfect Game: #9

Average: 11

Albert Almora:

Mater Academy Charter School in Hialeah Gardens, Florida

2011 USA Baseball’s Player of the Year; played on six national teams

Perfect Game: #9

Next. Could there be spring training at Wrigley Field?. dark

Jason Heyward:

Henry County High School in McDonough, Georgia

Two-time Georgia State Champion.

Batted .520 as a senior in high school

Perfect Game: #2

Home / Chicago Cubs News

Chicago Cubs: How good were the position players in high school?

Some Chicago Cubs players were destined for greatness from a very early age. Other’s followed more of the underdog career arc on their journey to the Show.

Recruiting rankings mean little if you are willing to work hard to get better.

Victor Caratini:

Daniel Descalso:

Nico Hoerner:

Anthony Rizzo:

Kyle Schwarber:

Ian Happ:

Steven Souza Jr.

David Bote:

The star was shining bright early for these current Chicago Cubs players.

Kris Bryant:

Javier Baez:

Albert Almora:

Jason Heyward:

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