It would’ve been a cleaner 9% if Baseball Prospectus went with a top-100 prospect list instead of 101 …
Math wishes aside, today Baseball Prospectus’s 2024 preseason top-101 prospect list dropped and it was LOADED with Chicago Cubs. A full NINE Cubs prospects show up on the list, and the next closest organization by volume is the Baltimore Orioles with just six. The average club has three.
In volume of top-100-type prospects, the Cubs are blowing away the field, at least according to BP.
You can head over to Baseball Prospectus to see the full list and placements, but the nine Cubs prospects making the cut are Pete Crow-Armstrong, Matt Shaw, Cade Horton, Owen Caissie, Michael Busch, Kevin Alcรกntara, Moises Ballesteros, James Triantos, and Jordan Wicks. Shaw showing up ahead of Horton is mighty interesting, as is the fact that he is ranked the 21st(!) overall prospect in baseball after just a half of a professional season.
Things will probably change rapidly in that group for the Cubs, as Busch is all but assured of graduating within a month of the season’s start. The same could be true for Jordan Wicks and Pete Crow-Armstrong, depending on how things play out. On the flip side, you could see prospects rising with strong early performances, and guys like Ben Brown and Jefferson Rojas could be on a list like this by midseason with strong first halves. And you never know who might surprise and come out of nowhere after some offseason development.
That is to say, even after some graduations, this Chicago Cubs farm system could still be very strong throughout this season.
Heck, just one year ago, BP’s top-101 list featured a total of three Cubs prospects: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Owen Caissie, and Matt Mervis. That was it. A lot can change in a year, and for the Cubs, at least in BP’s eyes, things changed dramatically for the better.
I should also note, though, that volume of top-100-type prospects is not the only indicator of the quality of a farm system, and the Orioles still probably come out on top here. Though they have just six prospects on the list compared to the Cubs’ nine, they have THREE of the top 15 prospects, whereas the Cubs’ top prospect, PCA, doesn’t show up until number 20.
Again, the Cubs could see some guys climb, and the Orioles will also see some graduations, but that’s probably the number one farm system in baseball for me at the moment, with the Cubs just behind.
The full BP top-101 is here. The Cubs sure do have a lot of talent coming up to the big league roster soon, and also a whole lot of ammo to make further trades …