Former Cubs outfield prospect is tearing up the minors with a hated NL rival

Since the start of the 2024 season, Michael Busch ranks eighth among MLB first basemen in fWAR and 10th in wRC+. However, I doubt very much that will help silence the prospect huggers who are about to be triggered by this piece.

Zyhir Hope, who was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers along with Jackson Ferris in the Jan. 2024 trade that brought Busch and right-hander Yency Almonte to Chicago, is on an absolute tear this year at Double-A. I'm not just saying he's having a fine season: he's one of the top-hitting prospects in all of Minor League Baseball.

Entering action Monday, Hope ranked second among all MiLB hitters with 83 runs driven in (adding insult to injury, the only prospect with more is another Dodgers farmhand in Easton Shelton), a staggering sum to go along with a .292/.375/.536 slash line in 384 plate appearances. The 21-year-old outfielder could force his way into Los Angeles' plans at the big-league level by next season, as the Dodgers look to continue their dynastic run.

Similar to Cubs' All-Star Pete Crow-Armstrong, Hope has attacked a major weakness in his game from a year ago: handling left-handed pitching. He barely kept his average above the Mendoza Line last season, but has turned into a major problem for southpaws in 2026, batting .325 and slugging .538.

Over the weekend, Hope turned in his fourth multi-homer game of the year and, at this point, there's not much left for him to prove at Double-A. MLB Pipeline has him as the #19 overall prospect in the game, with Fangraphs at #67 and Baseball America at #55. A consensus top-100 talent whose stock is only climbing, Cubs fans will be rehashing the Busch trade for years to come at this rate.

Zyhir Hope's emergence doesn't make Michael Busch trade a bad move

Hopefully, Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins reinforce this lesson in the next two weeks leading up to the MLB trade deadline: you can't just stockpile prospects. If the Detroit Tigers told Andrew Friedman and the Dodgers that Hope had to be part of a Tarik Skubal trade, I don't the LA exec would blink twice: you have to move talent if you want to acquire talent - and that's what the Cubs did (albeit on a smaller scale) when they pulled the trigger for Busch.

This was a glaring organizational need at the time - and Busch has done more than enough to reward the Cubs' faith in him. He's coming off a monster 2025 and is showing recent signs of heating up at the plate (even though he already has a 117 OPS+). It's always hard watching prospects your team traded have success, but I'd much rather go that route than cling to prospects needlessly and watch opportunities to supplement the big-league roster pass me by.

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