Cubs insider reveals the prospect likely to be dealt at the trade deadline

The trade deadline can't come soon enough for the Chicago Cubs. Their plentiful, well-documented pitching injuries have jump-started a ton of conversations about what targets are out there to acquire, when they can and should start making moves for another starter, and what the cost will be to land what they need. On that latter point, just about everyone in the system is on the table, from Jaxon Wiggins to even top prospect Jefferson Rojas, for the right deal. One name to keep an eye on, though, maybe this year's breakout player, Josiah Hartshorn.

A sixth-round draft pick from last year, Hartshorn has quickly captured the attention of Cubs prospect watchers with his white-hot start at Low-A Myrtle Beach. He's currently slashing .287/.450/.487 with a 164 wRC+ and five home runs in an offense-depressed environment. His approach at the plate, with just a 15.2% strikeout rate and a 21.2% walk rate, further shows how mature a hitter he is at the level. This was a gamble the Cubs were confident in, given his $2 million signing bonus, and it has paid off through 32 games so far, already making him their #8 overall prospect via MLB Pipeline.

There's a lot of value to having breakout prospects lower in the minors who can, hopefully, keep developing into future key pieces as openings arrive. However, The Athletic's Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney also believe the first baseman/outfielder has all the hallmarks of an ideal Cubs trade candidate. "Given his age (19), lack of experience and distance from Wrigley Field, Hartshorn profiles as the kind of prospect the Cubs are typically willing to give up in a win-now deal," Mooney wrote in a recent mailbag piece.

We've seen those types of deals before, for better and for worse. The Dodgers and the Cubs came together on a win-win deal that sent Chicago Michael Busch and Yency Almonte, in exchange for Jackson Ferris and then little-known prospect Zyhir Hope. Since then, Busch has been a cornerstone, while Hope defied his 11th-round pick status to become a top-20 prospect in baseball. On the flip side, they included infielder Ronny Cruz in the awful deal for Michael Soroka. Cruz immediately blossomed into a top-100 prospect, and the less said about Soroka's brief Cubs tenure, the better.

Chicago Cubs aren't too concerned about the far-out future

It's a real risk trading these younger, higher-ceiling, potential helium prospects for rentals, but that's the cost of winning now. Jed Hoyer knows that. The front office caught a ton of flak last deadline when Carter Hawkins made his controversial comment about having a "responsibility" to the 2032 team after not making a significant move, but that was more about the genuinely exorbitant prices last year. As their actions have shown, they've been willing to deal with these types of far-off farmhands in rental deals because of their volatility.

Credit where it is due, Hoyer has been pretty aggressive outside of 2025 when improving the team at the deadline in competitive years. In 2023, the Cubs went out and landed arguably the best rental bat on the market at the time in Jeimer Candelario to bolster a roster that appeared on the verge of something special. 2024 saw them get aggressive again for Isaac Paredes, giving up a struggling fan-favorite in Christopher Morel and more to make it happen.

Hartshorn has proven himself good enough to be involved in a high-profile deal so far. Freddy Peralta remains a standout target if the Mets' nightmare season continues, though Sharma and Mooney believe he could even be a key piece in a deal for a controllable starter, like a Joe Ryan type. The price would be high, but the breakouts of Hartshorn and Pedro Ramirez, in particular, give the Cubs more of a stockpile to pull from. They'll help to make up for a farm system that, overall, fell to its lowest ranking since 2021 before the season began.

So long as they develop well, there will be more prospects like Hartshorn, but there will never be another chance to improve the 2026 team. Any future value lost will all be worth it if the player the Cubs acquire is part of the reason they succeed in October.

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