Cubs eye Dansby Swanson’s potential heir with international free agency target

With the MLB offseason stuck in a mid-winter freeze, fans are desperate for any news one week into 2026. As we await movement on top names like Kyle Tucker, Bo Bichette and Alex Bregman, there is one important offseason date coming up: the international free agent class opens up on Jan. 15.

Baseball America recently updated its 2026 MLB international prospects board (subscription required), running down the top 50 talents in this year's crop of talent and their likely landing spots once the signing period opens. The Chicago Cubs are mentioned once - at #37 - listed in connection with 17-year-old Dominican infielder Yadier Muñoz.

According to the write-up, Muñoz has drawn praise from evaluators for his baseball IQ early on in the process, but points out that he 'doesn't have huge physical upside' given he's on the smaller side (5-10, 160 pounds). A right-handed hitter, he takes a contact-oriented approach at the plate with the ability to shoot the gaps with power. His future position isn't yet clear, but he's expected to stick at either second or short based on his defensive tools.

In international free agency, teams are bucketed into different international bonus pools: $8,034,900, $7,357,100, $6,679,200, $5,940,000 and $5,440,000. The Cubs fall into that third bucket ($6,679,200) this time around. A reminder (not that it impacts Chicago directly), but any team that signed a free agent attached to a qualifying offer has its bonus pool cut by $500K, and teams that exceed the CBT threshold lose $1 million for signing a free agent tied to a qualifying offer.

Cubs lack infield talent at the upper levels of their farm system

The Cubs' farm system has some infield talent, but it's all at the lower levels of the organization, headlined by their #4-ranked prospect Jefferson Rojas, whose MLB ETA, according to MLB Pipeline, is 2027. At the big-league level, Chicago has Dansby Swanson entrenched at shortstop through 2029, but second base is far less certain with Nico Hoerner set to hit free agency next fall, not to mention recent trade rumors swirling around him.

The team, as a whole, faces a lot of uncertainty post-2026. Hoerner joins a lengthy list of free agents-to-be, including Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Jameson Taillon, Hunter Harvey, Hoby Milner, Carson Kelly (mutual option), Matthew Boyd (mutual option) and Caleb Thielbar (mutual option). The Cubs hold club options on Jacob Webb and Colin Rea for 2027, but the message is clear: this team could look drastically different in a year's time, making the importance of building that sustainable pipeline of talent critically important.