Two-way standout Cubs' prospect should be back soon, and early reports are glowing

In the 4th round of the 2022 MLB Draft, the Chicago Cubs drafted Nazier Mule, a standout two-way prep player from New Jersey, and gave him an over-slot deal with a seven-figure signing bonus to lure him away from a scholarship to the University of Miami.

Since then the road has been a rocky one. 

He’s yet to throw a professional pitch due to a torn UCL that required Tommy John Surgery prior to the start of the 2023 season, but the good news is that he’s still just 19 years old and he’s recovering nicely. 

The Athletic recently posted that Mule is progressing so well that he’s throwing in Arizona right now and touching the mid-90s, but more importantly, we may be seeing Mule in game action by May. 

The Cubs are very careful with young pitching prospects, and with one Tommy John already on his resume, expect them to treat Mule with kid gloves for pretty much the entirety of the 2024 season.

That being said, when he’s on the mound he has the ability to be a truly special player. While he didn’t appear on many top Cubs’ prospects lists this offseason that has much more to do with the depth in the system than it does with his ceiling. 

The Cubs had said prior to the 2023 season that they intended to work with him solely as a pitcher, and that mentality doesn’t appear to have changed. 

However, if regaining the velocity and command that made him an attractive pitching prospect out of high school proves to be too tall of a task, he was considered the 18th best high school prospect in the 2022 draft and the 4th best high school shortstop in that class. 

The Iowa Cubs will obviously be a ton of fun to watch as they trot out a roster that has more than a half-dozen top 100 prospects who will be playing games in the majors sooner rather than later but don’t sleep on the lower levels of this system either.

The Cubs farm is so deep right now that guys like Mule can fly under the radar, but if he plays up to the standard that the Cubs gave him in an over-slot deal a couple of years ago, he might not be flying under the radar much longer.

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