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

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The Chicago Cubs have one of the most improved minor league systems in all of Major League Baseball. That didn’t happen because they dealt Cody Bellinger and Marcus Stroman at the deadline for a massive haul, it happened because of solid development at the lower levels and what appears to be a great crop of rookies from the Rule 4 Draft in June.

These are the best prospects in the Cubs system. Newly acquired infielder Michael Busch would have slotted in at number five ahead of Moises Ballesteros had the list been created after the trade, but that goes to show how deep, and how talented this farm really is. Every player in this top five has the ability to be a future All-Star and every one of them could be a top ten prospect in the league as early as the end of this season.

Let’s dive into the list.

Number 5

Moises Ballesteros

Age: 20

2023 Level(s): Low-A Myrtle Beach, High-A South Bend, AA Tennessee

Joined the organization via: IFA Signing in 2021

2023 Stats: 494 PA, .285/.375/.449, 14 HR, 41 XBH, 7/7 SB, 64 RBI, 64 R

To say Ballesteros came out of nowhere would be misleading and condescending. That being said, I didn’t have a catcher being a top-five prospect in this absolutely loaded farm system on my bingo card to start the year last season.

Let’s go through some of the things he did last season. First of all, he played at three levels (finishing the year at AA Tennessee) at the age of 19, playing inarguably the toughest position on the diamond. He hit for average and got on base every step of the way, carrying an incredible .285/.375/.449 slash line. He hit for power to the tune of 41 extra-base hits in 494 plate appearances and he even managed to be a bit of a menace on the base paths posting a 100% success rate in seven steal attempts.

That being said, the thing that I find most impressive about Ballesteros, and the reason that I think he’s an even more impressive prospect than Miguel Amaya or Willson Contreras ever were, is his ability to limit the strikeouts. He walked (63) nearly as often as he struck out (78). He did that as a teenager, learning to play the hardest defensive position across three levels with a myriad of pitchers that he was communicating with, against pitchers significantly older than him in a league that was using pre-tacked baseballs.

Ballesteros should start the season in AA Tennessee and get a chance to dominate there before moving to AAA. In a perfect world, he’s not being called upon to help the major league club until 2026, but if he posts as good of a season in 2024 as he did in 2023, then he could force his way to Wrigley by 2025.

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.

Number 3

Matt Shaw SS

Age: 22

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

Joined the organization via: 1st Round Pick in 2023 Draft

2023 Stats: 170 PA, .357/.400/.618, 8 HR, 21 XBH, 15/18 SB, 28 RBI, 27 R

Counting your chickens before they have hatched is a dangerous thing to do, but it absolutely appears that the Cubs have done a great job in their scouting department to find players and subsequently develop those players in the early rounds. Shaw and another player in the top five are the Cubs first round picks from the last two drafts and they are legitimate top-20 prospects in all of baseball.

When you look at Matt Shaw there’s not much not to like. He played in the Big Ten at Maryland and so the spotlight didn’t shine as brightly on him as it may have shone on players from the SEC or Pac-12 in hotter climates that allowed for more baseball to be played.

That being said, we were on Shaw from the beginning and had this to say prior to the draft:

Matt Shaw is an interesting player. He can hit for contact and he can hit for power, so it’s the bat that will likely make him a first round pick. He’s hit over 50 home runs while in college with 46 of those coming in his sophomore and junior seasons. This year he walked more often (43) than he struck out (42) and he showed some speed and baserunning prowess by stealing 18-19 bases he attempted.
Cubbies Crib

Once he was drafted we were completely in favor of the pick and he went on to put up an even better rookie season than he had put up in college. He played at three levels ending in Tennessee. He’ll likely start the year back at Tennessee with fellow top-five prospects Kevin Alcantara and Moises Ballesteros making it one of the best offenses in the Cubs’ system to start the year.

That being said, Shaw is the kind of player that fans can dream of. He can hit for average, he can hit for power, he can steal bases and he can play a defensive up the middle position. If the Cubs were to send Shaw away in a trade it would be for a legitimate star at the major league level and if they were to call him up to the big leagues he may become a star in his own right.

There is a world where Matt Shaw ends the season as a top-five prospect in baseball and it’s not that hard to envision it. Perhaps the only thing that would prevent it is if he were to no longer be considered a prospect at the end of the season due to already being in the major leagues.

Number 2

Cade Horton RHP

Age: 22

2023 Level(s): Low-A Myrtle Beach, High-A South Bend, AA Tennessee

Joined the organization via: First Round Pick in the 2022 Draft

2023 Stats: 88.1 IP, 2.65 ERA, 117/27 K/BB

Cade Horton is perhaps the only player who would give Owen Caissie a run for his money in the battle for Best Cubs Prospect of 2023. I’m not sure that any pitching prospect in baseball had a more impressive season than Horton did between three levels of the minors last season.

When the Cubs spent their first-round pick on Horton there was plenty of concern surrounding him. He was a player who had tremendous helium due to a spectacular showing in the College World Series, but in his career at Oklahoma, he was mediocre at best. In his draft season he pitched to a 4.86 ERA over 53.2 innings and posted a 10.7 K/9; not quite what you’re looking for from a top-15 pick in the MLB Draft.

Last season, however, he pitched out of his mind. He opened the season with four games at Low-A and absolutely dominated the young hitters there. He was still young for the level but he earned a 1.26 ERA and had a 13.2 K/9 while walking just 2.5 per nine.

He was then called up to High-A South Bend where he spent the majority of his season and put up solid numbers. He pitched 47 innings and had a 3.83 ERA while striking out 12.4 batters and walking 2.3 batters per nine innings.

His most impressive stint though came at the end of the season when he pitched 27 innings at AA Tennessee and posted a 2.67 ERA with 10.3 K/9 and 3.7 BB/9. It would have been great to see the strikeouts and walks remain at their pristine levels he had earlier in the season but what Horton showed was that he wasn’t running out of gas despite pitching deeper into a season than he ever had before.

Coming into 2024 he will likely start the year at AA before going to Iowa and joining a rotation that will be as good as any in the minors. In all likelihood, the Iowa rotation will feature Jordan Wicks, Ben Brown, Hayden Wesneski, and Caleb Kilian and Horton has a higher upside than all of them put together due to his propensity to strike batters out and not allow walks. This should be a fun season to watch his continued development.

Number 1

Pete Crow-Armstrong OF

Age: 21

2023 Level(s): AA Tennessee, AAA Iowa

Joined the organization via: Javier Baez Trade with the New York Mets

2023 Stats: 500 PA, .283/.365/.511, 20 HR, 53 XBH, 37/47 SB, 82 RBI, 98 R

This may be the easiest number-one prospect the Cubs have had in some time. No disrespect to Cade Horton, Matt Shaw, or anyone else on this list, but Crow-Armstrong has been as advertised and then some. It would have been nice to see a better performance in the majors to end the season but I chalk that up to him pressing to prove he deserved playing time to a manager who was unwilling to get younger players in the lineup.

Crow-Armstrong is a player that the great teams have. He’s an excellent, potential Gold-Glove caliber defender at a premium position in center field. He’s got legitimate game-changing speed that will keep pitchers in their heads when he gets on base. He can hit for average as shown by his .283 batting average last season but he can also hit for power as proven by the 53 extra-base hits he put up and his .228 ISO.

If the Cubs were to be incapable of re-signing Cody Bellinger then slotting Pete Crow-Armstrong in as the everyday center fielder would be a completely reasonable thing to do. Even if the Cubs do manage to re-sign Bellinger, it’s worth at least considering playing Bellinger at First Base (where he is a Gold Glove-caliber defender) to ensure that PCA gets the playing time he needs at his best position.

The best thing that could have happened for Crow-Armstrong’s development is the introduction of Craig Counsell as manager. Counsell has always managed to get the most out of the players on his roster, even when those players were leftovers from larger markets. Now, Counsell will have arguably the best prospect he’s ever gotten to manage available at his disposal and he will use him wisely.

The difference between Pete Crow-Armstrong and other prospects is that even if the bat goes cold he has the ability to truly alter the game in different ways. He could be in a slump but his willingness to draw a walk and his ability to be a pest on the base paths makes him valuable. Combine that with his excellence in the outfield and his floor as an everyday centerfielder on a division-winning team. His ceiling… well his ceiling is much higher than that.

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