This weekend, Michael discussed the new MLB Pipeline top-100 prospects list, which largely matched the Baseball America list that had dropped a couple days earlier. Namely, the Chicago Cubs have two prospects in the top-100, Moises Ballesteros and Jaxon Wiggins. Lots of recent graduates, some trades, some stalling out, and a lack of huge breakouts from deeper in the draft or in International Free Agency over the last five years have left the Cubs’ system relatively thin on impact-caliber talent, at least in the eyes of outside evaluators.
Still, Ballesteros and Wiggins are excellent prospects, so at least there’s that, and this is likely how most of the baseballing world sees the top of the Cubs’ system right now.
Ah, but Keith Law today dropped his pre-season top-100 prospects list, and it actually looks pretty darn different as far as the Cubs are concerned:
41. Kevin Alcantara, OF47. Moises Ballesteros, C79. Jefferson Rojas, SS
Oh. Interesting.
As much as the exclusion of Wiggins is a head-scratcher to me, it’s also surprising to see Law be the only pundit who isn’t knocking Alcantara or Rojas way back this year after a 2025 season that saw plenty of reason for optimism on both, but probably not the huge breakouts that others were hoping for.
I can state with confidence this is by far the highest we’ll see Kevin Alcantara ranked this offseason, and Law frames his 2025 season as a positive:
“Alcántara’s first full season in Triple A went reasonably well, as he hit .266/.349/.470 despite playing through a sports hernia for a good chunk of the season, still showing flashes of that big power ceiling with a max exit velocity of 112.3 mph. He struck out 29.8 percent of the time, but did improve some of his swing decisions over the course of the year, swinging less often in the second half overall and cutting his chase rate by four points, so there was progress in spite of the injury.”
Alcantara, 23, will be competing for a bench job in Spring Training, and otherwise would head back to Iowa to wait for his shot. He’s gonna have to sort out his slow start thing, which has now become an annual tradition. Some of it is probably the adjustment to a full season at Triple-A, but Alcantara was hitting just .237/.322/.395/85 wRC+ through June 19 last season (11.0% BB, 31.4% K, .158 ISO). After June 19? .305/.384/.567/143 wRC+, 11.4% BB, 27.6% K, .262 ISO.
Best guess is that we’ll see Alcantara up and down a bit this year in a reserve role, and hopefully absolutely raking in the periods of time he is at Iowa. That could set the Cubs up with the option of planning to use Alcantara as a starter in a corner outfield spot in 2027 if either Ian Happ or Seiya Suzuki depart in free agency.
As for Jefferson Rojas, Law is effusive in his praise for Rojas’s understanding of the strike zone at a relatively young age for his level (it’s been apparent for years), and if the glove stays average at shortstop, and if the power comes along as he develops, you could be talking about a borderline star big leaguer. Not hard to see why that profile would still be in the top-100, especially as a 20-year-old who has reached Double-A.
What you really want to see from him this year is a strong first half offensively at Double-A (he didn’t hit much in his 39-game cup there last year, and the lack of power was particularly noticeable), and at least the potential for a second half call up to Triple-A. It isn’t necessary, as far as age/level go, but I’m just speaking about the caliber of prospect we want to see him become in 2026. Forcing a bump to Triple-A in his age-21 season would be very impressive.
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