Chicago Cubs promote Brandon Birdsell to Triple-A Iowa

After another strong start to a season, Chicago Cubs prospect Brandon Birdsell is being promoted to Triple-A Iowa. With a 3.63 ERA in Double-A Tennessee over the course of 15 appearances, 14 starts, and 74.1 IP, the promotion was inevitable at some point. He now enters the highest rung of the ladder before heading to the show, where he will join several other Cubs top prospects who are just one call away from realizing their dream.

Birdsell was on our list early this year of pitchers to keep an eye on. Taken in the 5th round of the 2022 draft when the team went pitcher-heavy in the draft a couple of seasons ago. Since then, he has owned a career 3.86 ERA, with most of that damage coming in 2023 when he initially got called up to Double-A before adjusting to a higher talent level of hitting. We expected Birdsell to land in Triple-A at some point, so this feels right on cue. The Cubs are certainly pushing to get their prospect's experience and have depth available for the major league team.

Just 24 years old, Birdsell will hopefully represent what has been a growing list of prospect pitchers to join the Cubs in recent years. Names like Justin Steele, Javier Assad, Luke Little, Jordan Wicks, and Porter Hodge are all fully homegrown by the Cubs and have found success at the highest level. Other players, such as Ben Brown and Hayden Wesneski, were traded for with a keen eye by the Cubs' front office and have shown their potential in MLB as well.

With the Cubs' bullpen being what it has been all season, the front office will be eager to get as many guys to the highest level who can potentially contribute as possible. Birdsell fits the mold as someone who will likely start in the pen and be stretched out from there, as have former I-Cubs alumni in the past couple of seasons. Hopefully, he can tear it up in Iowa and will reach the Cubs at some point this season.