Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Chicago Cubs. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the sixth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Young and Projectable
Johan Geraldo, SS
Jaims Martinez, SS
Yadier Munoz, SS
Robin Ortiz, OF
Victor Garcia, C
Jider Corpas, RHP
Anthony Feliz, RHP
This is a group of mostly very young players who are in the low minors, some of whom are about to start their pro careers. Martinez, Munoz and Geraldo are from the most recent signing class. Geraldo ($600,000) got the smallest bonus of the three but is the most projectable, at 6-foot-1. The other two are tiny infielders who got about a million bucks. Ortiz has had below-average batting lines in each of his two DSL seasons, but the 19-year-old outfielder has plus-plus projection, at 6-foot-4, and we think he has enough barrel feel to merit a follow. Garcia was one of the younger DSL hitters on the Cubs rosters last year and posted an 82% contact rate in a limited sample. Corpas is a projectable 18-year-old Colombian righty with an exciting changeup and curveball. If he can add velo and improve his feel for release as he matures, he’ll move onto the main section of the list. Feliz, 19, works with an upper-80s cutter and a deep, vertical curveball, and has a projectable build. He struggled with walks during his 2025 DSL debut.
Not As Projectable
Jose Escobar, 2B/LF
Freiker Betencourt, CF
Ivan Cespedes, C
Chaily Ramirez, RHP
Cameron Sisneros, 1B
Escobar, 21, is repeating Low-A and has 40/45 grade offensive skills across the board. Betencourt is a 5-foot-6 center fielder with a plus arm. He hit well in his DSL debut, but at his size, he has to continue showing premium bat-to-ball ability as he climbs to be considered a true prospect. Cespedes is a stocky, physically mature 20-year-old who thrived in his second DSL season (.292/.357/.504, seven homers), but he still struck out a lot (24.6%). Ramirez, 21, was an older signee from last year’s international class who sits 94-96 early in his starts and flashes a plus changeup. Sisneros, 24, is a physical lefty masher out of East Tennessee who is still in A-ball, but he’s performing there.
Fringe Relief Archetypes
Nick Dean, RHP
Tyler Schlaffer, RHP
Zac Leigh, RHP
Dean and Schlaffer are starting at Double-A, but both are essentially one-pitch guys (Dean’s changeup is great, Schlaffer is sitting 95) who have fringe command. Leigh has dealt with a litany of injuries and fluctuating stuff as a pro. At his best, his cutting mid-90s fastball spearheads a middle relief look.
We Like the Cut of Their Jib
Erian Rodriguez, RHP
Alfredo Romero, RHP
Marino Santy, LHP
Yusef Hanania, RHP
These are pitching prospects with good-looking deliveries. Rodriguez is a Panamanian righty who went to high school in Georgia and reached Double-A as a starter last year. He sits in the mid-90s, but his heater has a crushable lack of movement. Romero, 22, doesn’t throw especially hard, nor has he performed all that well. But his delivery is gorgeous, and at an angular 6-foot-3, he has an ideal pitcher’s build. This is the sort of player who’d be a high priority six-year minor league free agent for us if our hypothetical dev group had some notion as to how they’d make him throw harder. Santy is a 24-year-old southpaw with a pretty three-quarters delivery and enough of a breaking ball that he might be able to get lefties out. Hanania is a 20-year-old Venezuelan righty who struggled with walks in his 2025 DSL debut, but his delivery is athletically exciting (big hip-and-shoulder separation, extension, uphill fastball angle), and we like his chances of throwing harder and having an impact fastball down the line.
Whiffing Excessively
Geuri Lubo, OF
Angel Cepeda, SS
Fernando Cruz, SS
Yahil Melendez, SS
Eriandys Ramon, INF
Derniche Valdez, SS
This group has players who have appeared on past lists, but who are striking out too much to have main-section clout. Some of them (Cruz, Valdez) got big bonuses. Lubo is a rangy converted infielder who has been hurt for most of the last two seasons. Cepeda has posted an above-average wRC+ at each low minors level, but has struck out more than 30% of the time while doing so. Cruz’s contact rate was 56% in the ACL last season, but he hammers the baseball when he makes contact. Melendez (a draft pick from Puerto Rico) and Ramon (a Cuban signee) have struggled to perform since leaving the complex. Ramon is now listed as a pitcher on the Cubs ACL roster, but that might be a mistake. Valdez is as talented as he is frustrating, with the most recent microcosm of his issues coming during a spring game in which he hit a laser double off the wall and then was immediately thrown out trying to steal an already-occupied third base.
Notable Stuff
Luis Martinez-Gomez, RHP
Kenyi Perez, RHP
Braylon Myers, RHP
Edwardo Melendez, RHP
Martinez-Gomez, 22, is a funky Double-A relief righty with a low-slot drop-and-drive delivery and a mid-90s fastball. His delivery is out of control, more than one might think just looking at his walk totals from the past two years. Perez has two of the spinniest pitches you’ll ever see. His fastball is routinely in the 93-96 mph range with 2,600 rpm, while his breaking ball often features 3,300 rpm, which is some of the nuttiest spin in all of pro baseball. He’s also walked a batter or more per inning for the last half decade. Myers, 23, was a 2025 undrafted senior signee out of Alabama who thrived as a reliever thanks to his delivery’s deceptive moving parts and his good feel for slider location. His fastball has enjoyed a two-tick bump in the early going of 2026 (he’s now sitting 92), and he’s off to a great start at Myrtle Beach. Melendez is an A-ball righty with a naturally cutting fastball and a plus sweeper. He’s striking out over a batter per inning in the early going of 2026, but under the hood, his strike-throwing is a looming issue.
System Overview
This is a weird system. It has more position player prospects than it does pitchers, which is a rarity in our current era of pitcher development. That’s perhaps not a great sign for how things are going down on the farm, even though the big league team is thriving right now. The Cubs’ developmental strategies stand a bit apart from teams that train in Arizona because a greater percentage of their activities take place away from the field and in a controlled setting. For example, every Arizona-based team had its complex group play at least a dozen extended spring games in April (and as many as 18), while the Cubs played none. Instead, they did a month of intersquads and indoor work in their pitching lab. It’s not necessarily the wrong approach, but it is different than what every other team in Arizona is doing. And when the cupboard is bare of pitching like it is right now, it’s fair to wonder what else is going on that might be unique or novel, and whether it is working.
For instance, look at how old some of their affiliates are. That’s also strange. This may have been caused by the vacuum created by a number of the prospect trades the Cubs have made during the last couple of years, trades that highlight the one aspect of Cubs ops that is unequivocally working: their domestic amateur scouting and draft strategy. Cam Smith, Zyhir Hope, Ronny Cruz, Alfonsin Rosario, and Christian Franklin were all arrow-up prospects with meaningful trade value not long after they signed. The last couple of Cubs drafts, including some later picks (again, mostly position payers like Owen Ayers and Ariel Armas) are well-represented on this list. This team, of late, has been good at drafting.
Internationally, the Cubs are starting to behave in a way we associate with Cleveland, spreading their bonus pool out across a lot of players, many of whom are smaller, compact athletes. It’s a shift away from giving a ton of money to just one or two guys, which resulted in some high profile whiffs (pun intended) and has contributed to the vacuum that all those older players are now filling.
This system is slightly below average on depth and high-end talent, more so once you graduate Ballesteros. To call it “bad” would be going too far, though, as there are exciting hitters in the 40+ tier and above who look like they might be everyday contributors. But what the Cubbies are at risk of here is similar to what precipitated the end of the Theo Epstein era, when the org couldn’t develop pitching well enough to support what should have been a longer window of contention.