The Cubs have gone through a rough stretch of baseball as of late, but the same can’t be said about their farm system, which has become a bright spot over the first few months of the season. Several prospects have broken out and exceeded expectations, but none of them have taken off quite like Josiah Hartshorn.
The Cubs selected Hartshorn in the sixth round of the 2025 draft, but gave him a signing bonus of $2 million, which is a record for players out of the sixth round, as that value is normally assigned to those taken in the second round. They saw a lot of potential in his offensive tools, and we’re already seeing those come to fruition less than a year after the draft.
He’s already been promoted once, playing games in both Myrtle Beach and South Bend this year. After posting a .424 OBP and 149 wRC+ for the Pelicans, Hartshorn has somehow gotten even better against what is supposed to be tougher pitching. In his first 19 games with the South Bend Cubs, the 19-year-old has seven home runs, with a .817 SLG and unfathomable 196 wRC+.
Josiah Hartshorn launches ANOTHER moonshot for the High-A @SBCubs ? The 2025 sixth-rounder (@Cubs No. 7 prospect) has a 1.333 OPS with 8 homers in 18 games since his promotion. pic.twitter.com/uy51h4Z7Gv
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) June 14, 2026A 196 wRC+ is not sustainable across an entire season, but it’s become clear that the sky is the limit for Hartshorn. If he keeps tearing apart High-A pitching, a promotion to Double-A isn’t out of the realm of possibility. At the same time, the last thing the Cubs would want is to rush him, so it’s a tricky balance that they’re in charge of figuring out.
The Cubs haven’t had many prospects perform like this since the likes of Kris Bryant and Javier Baez were called up. One name that does come to mind is Cam Smith, who was the Cubs’ first-rounder in 2024. Smith played in three different levels in 2024, a move that we rarely see from the Cubs front office.
In 32 games that fall, Smith had a .609 slugging and 1.004 OPS, so those promotions were completely warranted. Nonetheless, it’s not often that a recently drafted prospect gets so hot that he sets the farm system on fire.
Smith was traded to the Astros for Kyle Tucker that winter, so we never got to see a full season of him in the minor leagues with the Cubs. Even if the Cubs decide to buy at the trade deadline, which is less than two months away, it feels like it would be an unwise decision to trade away Hartshorn, even though he’ll be highly sought after by opposing front offices.
Another interesting factor in the Hartshorn equation is the fact that he plays the outfield, a position that the Cubs are going to have openings in after this season, with both Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki set to become free agents. It’s unrealistic to expect Hartshorn to be ready for the beginning of the 2027 season, but the Cubs need to keep him in mind when looking for outfield replacements this offseason.
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