5 underrated prospects in the Chicago Cubs farm system

With it so easy for prospects to not get the recognition they deserve due to the sheer depth of every organization in baseball, it's important to remember that there's a lot more promising talent in the lower levels than you may realize. Top 100 prospect list and entertaining to read and get excited about, but they don't do the majority of prospects justice. Take Matt Mervis, who led the minors in home runs a season ago and never graced MLB Pipeline's top 100 list, for example.

That being said, we wanted to point out who is amid a breakout season that you may not be familiar with yet if you don't pay attention to the minor league system daily. Without further ado, here are five underrated prospects currently shining in the Cubs organization who are not getting the recognition they deserve.

5 underrated prospects - Connor Noland

After recording a 3.65 in his senior year at the collegiate level, The Chicago Cubs went with Connor Noland in the 9th round of the 2022 draft just a season ago. In his first year of professional ball, Noland started with the Cubs' High-A affiliate in South Bend and has recorded a 2.84 ERA in 13 starts throughout 57.0 innings. He earned Player of the Week a month ago. With most of last year's draft attention being placed on Cade Horton as of late, Noland slots in as someone who has quietly been putting up better numbers overall in 14 inning sample size larger than Horton through this part of the season (2.93 for Horton between Myrtle Beach and South Bend thus far).

Obviously, Horton's ceiling is sky-high, so this isn't to compare who's better or what have you. More so that Noland deserves some recognition in his first year of pro ball. At 23 years old and only going above 100 innings just once in his college career, there's a good amount of life on his arm, and he has plenty of potential to keep increasing his production. If he keeps it up, it'll be safe to say he deserves the nod to head to Double-A Tennessee at some point this year.