2024 Spring Training Chicago Cubs' Top Prospects (#5-1)

Number 4 

Kevin Alcantara OF

Age: 21

2023 Level(s): Rookie Ball, High-A South Bend, AA Tennessee

Joined the organization via: Anthony Rizzo Trade with the New York Yankees

2023 Stats: 435 PA, .284/.345/.466, 13 HR, 42 XBH, 15/19 SB, 71 RBI, 71 R

We hear all the time about what teams value in their players. They want a hard worker, they want a middle-of-the-diamond player, they want… yada yada yada. The thing that I want to see in a player is resilience. The ability to put a slump behind you and pick up the broken shards of a disappointing season and salvage something. 

If that’s what you’re looking for also then you’ll love Kevin Alcantara. In April he hit .256/.302/.449. In May it got worse and he hit .200/.216/.282. He could have fallen apart but he didn’t and in June he picked it up and hit .306/.379/.518 and followed it with a scorching July where he hit .405/.479/.667.

That’s what great players do. They look at things one game at a time, they don’t let slumps define them and they get back on track. 

Alcantara will likely begin the season at AA this year but should be at AAA before the end of the year. He’s on a similar trajectory to where Pete Crow-Armstrong was at this point last season but the major difference is that he may be even more tooled up than Crow-Armstrong. 

Unfortunately for Cubs fans, there’s certainly a world where the major league club is contending around the trade deadline and Alcantara is the exact kind of player that a rebuilding team would want in return for sending off a piece that could help the Cubs in a playoff run. He’s definitely going to be one to keep an eye on in 2024.