Chicago Cubs Minor League Recap: This prospect just turned in a whale of a week

Honorable Mentions

Felix Stevens 

• OF (High-A South Bend Cubs) - .316/.409/.632 2 HR, 3 BB, 5 RBI, 2R

After having the best week of his career with the Cubs last week, Felix Stevens had almost an equally strong encore performance that may be showing he’s simply too advanced of a player right now for High-A competition.

That shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise considering he is nearly two years older than the average competitor at High-A, and while his strikeouts continue to be a massive concern, you can’t deny the power output. After putting up a .938 slugging percentage last week, Stevens followed it up this week with a .632 this week and he’s now hit five homers in the last two weeks. 

Like we said last week, “He’ll be 25 years old in July… so there’s not much long-term upside here, but it’s good to see a guy that grinds at his craft put together a solid week like this one.”

Maybe there’s a little more upside than originally expected.

BJ Murray

• 3B (Triple-A Iowa Cubs) - .333/.478/944 3 HR, 2 2B, 2 BB, 5 RBI, 6 R

It’s about time.

Murray started the season in a funk and we named him a bounce-back candidate in the first Minor League Recap of the season. Since then, he’s remained pretty abysmal by hitting .185/.306/.347 on the season.

This week, however, he turned it around. If it hadn’t been for the incredible story of Brennen Davis he would have likely been the prospect hitter of the week and would have made the preseason declaration that he could wind up being the best prospect in the Cubs’ system a little bit less offensive.

Murray has a lot going for him. He’s won championships at High-A South Bend, Double-A Tennessee and will look to do the same for Triple-A Iowa. He plays a position of significant need for the Cubs at the Major League level as Christopher Morel doesn’t look like he is capable of becoming an average defensive third-baseman despite having an absolute cannon for a right arm. Finally, he can hit for significant power as shown by his five extra-base-hit performance this week.