Chicago Cubs relief prospect Marino Santy gave up his first earned runs in roughly a month yesterday at Double-A Knoxville. Giving up runs, by itself, isn’t a celebration – but the intervening month tells you a lot about what the 24-year-old lefty has been doing for the Tennessee Smokies this season.
Back in April, I put Santy on unofficial “Breakout Watch” watch after he ripped off eight strikeouts in eight batters during one of his early Double-A appearances. Buuuuut there was a big hedge at the time, of the type we often see for relief-only prospects with huge strikeout rates: the walks.
I wanted to keep an eye on the walk rate, which had been hovering around 15% across his prior pro stops, and which had ballooned to a clearly unplayable 20.9% during a miserable 2025 at High-A South Bend. A relief prospect with premium stuff can survive an elevated walk rate if the strikeouts stay high enough, but the hope for 2026 obviously was that he could translate the stuff into strikeouts and cut down on the walks. In the early going back at High-A, the walk rate stayed elevated, but the strikeouts tipped up toward 40%, so he got the early bump to Double-A. That’s when he had that dominant outing, and when he really put himself on the radar.
But how has he done since? Well, like I teased in the intro, it’s been a really good showing at Double-A: 1.80 ERA over 25.0 innings (16 appearances), 37.3% K, 11.8% BB. His swinging strike rate has jumped to 15.6% at the level, and he’s got a 34.5% CSW(!). NOW we’re talking. Strikeouts up. Walks down. All against better competition.
8 straight outs. 8 straight K’s. ?Mariano Santy punches out 8 in a row in AA start #2 ?Yeah… you’re gonna want to see this ?#SmokiesBaseball #Strikeout pic.twitter.com/SIyDpHB1Oh
— Knoxville Smokies (@smokiesbaseball) April 19, 2026The other piece I want to spotlight in Marino Santy’s performance thus far at Double-A is the groundball rate, which is up to 56.0%. Tons of strikeouts and tons of groundballs is the combination you’d love to graft onto every pitching prospect, and Santy has done it so far at a level that’s more or less age appropriate.
A few things to discuss about his performance and his situation.
First, although you never count in a relief prospect making it from High-A to Double-A to Triple-A to MLB in a single season, we have seen it before. If Marino Santy is looking as dominant as his results at Knoxville suggest, the big league Cubs may want to get him up to Triple-A sooner rather than later and see if the stuff (and improved control) play there, too. Sometimes, relief prospects can move very quickly.
Second, and more realistically an issue, Santy is Rule 5 Draft eligible after this season. A 24-year-old lefty reliever pitching like this at Double-A is exactly the kind of profile that gets plucked in December. I can’t speak to how other orgs project him, but it would take only one. If Marino Santy keeps looking like this, the Cubs are very seriously going to have to consider adding him to the 40-man roster after the season.
Which, by the way, is again all the more reason to get him up to Triple-A sooner rather than later. More information for that November rostering decision.
Third, something of a caveat to all of the above: Santy is pitching only about every three to four days, and only for about two innings per appearance recently. It’s a reliever profile (I don’t think the Cubs are stretching him out), but it’s coming with a whole lot of rest between outings. Longer-term, we know that a reliever can’t be protected like that. So if his development is slower and more deliberate, I’m wondering if it’s because he’s not yet worked out how to recover more quickly between outings.
All in all, I am probably getting overly excited about Marino Santy today because there have been, generally speaking, far fewer pitching breakouts this year in the Cubs’ system than positional breakouts. He stands out. I don’t want to oversell or over-predict his future based on 25.0 really good innings at Double-A. But this is the version of Santy you needed to see for him to be taken seriously as a prospect, and he has done it for two months now. So he’s firmly on the radar for a bump to Triple-A soon, if nothing else.
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