NEWSLETTER
Top Chicago Cubs prospect Brennen Davis is headed up to Triple-A Iowa to close out the year, and he’ll do so as the newly-minted 18th best prospect in baseball, according to Baseball America’s just-released top 100 update.
In their final update of the regular season, BA tabbed Davis as the 18th best prospect in baseball, just behind big-time arms Cade Cavalli and Reid Detmers, and just ahead of big-time infielders Oneil Cruz and Vidal Brujan. Davis is full-on considered a true impact prospect at this point.
Also on the updated top 100, Cristian Hernandez comes in at number 97. His progression in the DSL has been fantastic (he just keeps getting better and better as the season goes on and he gets more experience), and the 17-year-old shortstop is currently hitting .295/.399/.462 (look at that OBP!), with a 139 wRC+, 14.6% BB rate, and 22.8% K rate. Over the last month and a half? He’s hitting .337/.423/.602 (175). Suffice to say, he hasn’t done anything this year to change his standing as one of the best IFA signings in recent memory. I wonder if he sees any time at Low-A next year after raking in complex ball …
As for Davis, who is a consensus top 20 prospect in the game at this point, Gordon Wittenmyer spoke with the outfielder after word broke about the promotion:
“The next wave is going to start with Brennen Davis.”@GDubCub catches up with @BrennenDavis__ in Tennessee on his way to Iowa:https://t.co/fGmAwQPpRk
— Cubs Talk (@NBCSCubs) September 13, 2021
I keep remembering that Davis is so young for his level, and also has so little pro experience thanks to a short season in 2019 and then no minor league season in 2020. Yet here he is, reaching Triple-A Iowa at 21, and expected to be contributing in the big leagues as soon as 2022. He is a total stud, who would have comfortably fit into that legendary Cubs positional prospect group from 2013-14 (it’s just that there’s only one of him instead of four or five).
For his part, I really dug this perspective from Davis (via NBCSC):
And he appreciates the attention he’s getting for his performance, the promotions and all those prospect rankings this year.
But he’s wary of that “fine line” between appreciating those things and getting caught up in them.
“The whole prospect thing is awesome, but it doesn’t hold a ton of weight in my eyes because at the end of the day I don’t want to be a top prospect,” he said. “I want to be a big-leaguer.
“I don’t want to chase prospect rankings. I want to chase getting to the big leagues and being everything that the Cubs want me to be.”
The rankings are nice, but they should always be more for fans than for the players, themselves. Davis has the right focus, which, if you’ve read anything about him or heard from him at all, doesn’t surprise you in the least. I can’t wait for Iowa’s game tomorrow night.
