Chicago Cubs Prospects of the Week for 5/29-6/4

Hitter of the week: 2B Nick Madrigal (26 Years Old)

.438/.550/.875 3/3 BB/K, 2 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 5 R, 3 RBI

Before the small-sample police come out and try to say that Nick Madrigal shouldn’t be the choice because his slash line is inflated, I will point out that Madrigal played in as many games at Iowa this week as any other player. I said it in one of the more recent minor league recaps, but Madrigal may just legitimately be too good for AAA competition. 

If the slash-line didn’t prove the point that he’s not getting anything out of AAA aside from everyday at-bats, look no further than the home run he hit this week. It’s not fair to say Madrigal doesn’t hit homers, because he has. Just not for the Cubs. His last home run came in a White Sox uniform on June 4th, 2021. 

I’m not calling for Madrigal to come back up and join the major league team, but I am saying that we’re lying to ourselves if we think he’s getting a ton out of being down there. Unless the Cubs begin playing him in center field to try to gain some level of positional flexibility out of him I really don’t know what else there is to do. He doesn’t have the arm for a shortstop or third base, the Cubs locked up Nico Hoerner long-term at second base, and as of right now, I don’t see a path to trading him as he makes more sense for a rebuilding team than a team pushing for the playoffs unless someone is dying for a pinch-runner. 

The best thing I can come up with is to take a look at other players like Madrigal in other systems and see if we can come up with a change of scenery deal. MLB.com recently posted an article that highlighted such players and there were a couple of names that jumped out to me that I’ll touch on later this week, but we have to recognize that when Christopher Morel and Matt Mervis were putting this kind of stat line to begin the year we were all losing our minds that they weren’t in the Majors; we can’t change that tune now.