There’s a New Number One in My Preseason Cubs Top 30 Prospects ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/02/04/t...

I had the entire offseason to post my updated Cubs prospect list so it only makes sense that the day I hit publish is the same day Baseball Prospectus (Top 100), Keith Law (Cubs Top 20), and Kiley McDaniel (Cubs Top 10) drop new rankings. Hope you guys still enjoy my update!

Cubs pitchers and catchers report one week from today, so right now seems like an ideal time to update my top prospect list, going 30 names deep (plus a few honorable mentions) ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/02/04/t...

Alex Lontayo has been named the 2025 Cubs Scout of the Year

Private equity buying up all the affiliated minor league baseball teams and now even starting to purchase non-affiliated teams…

I’m still expecting the Cubs to sign one or two more catchers to minor league deals. Here is the organization’s depth chart behind the plate: 1. Carson Kelly 2. Miguel Amaya 3. Moises Ballesteros (??) 4. Christian Bethancourt 5. Casey Opitz 6. Ariel Armas

Pirates: *Acquire Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn* Everyone: “Holy hell, what an offseason!”

Moises Ballesteros likely won’t be logging ABs vs lefties, at least to begin his career. 2025 in Iowa vs RHP: .346/.418/.547//.965 vs LHP: .230/.296/.281//.577 That’ll give him an easy runway into his 1st full season in the bigs and allow for more ABs to be given to other guys

My newly updated Cubs Top 30 Prospects article has been submitted to the editor (also me) and will be released on Wednesday!

Iowa: hitter-friendly but a tad bit less than last year Knoxville: a hitter’s torture chamber South Bend: consistently pitcher-friendly each year, but not a crazy amount Myrtle Beach: dare I say actually better for hitters than pitchers when compared to the rest of the league?

How friendly were Cubs minor league ballparks to hitters and pitchers in 2025? I dig in ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/02/01/h...

Cade Horton threw 147 innings last year after throwing just 34 the year prior. If he keeps up that trend, he’ll log 260 innings. Enough for a full season with absolutely no restrictions + 4 complete game shutouts in the Postseason.

How friendly were Cubs minor league ballparks to hitters and pitchers in 2025? I dig in ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/02/01/h...

I’ve been really curious about how the brand new ballpark in Knoxville plays for the Cubs AA affiliate After reviewing park factors provided by @baseballamerica.com, the Cubs officially have a new “hardest park to hit in,” with Knoxville taking over for long-time winner Myrtle Beach

The Cubs have released the following minor leaguers: Landon Ginn Charlie Hurley Mathew Peters

This is my Christmas

On a bus for the next 2.5 hours. Ask me questions, please.

Hand up — I’m not sure what Zac Gallen provides to the Chicago Cubs that they don’t already have.

Owen Ayers was one of the most requested offseason interviews by listeners so I’m really glad we were able to get him on the show!

Kevin Alcántara K%+ (100 is league-average) by year in the minors: 2022 in MB: 102 2023 in SB/TN: 98 2024 in TN/IA: 92 2025 in IA: 71 Trending in the wrong direction but the strikeouts weren’t a problem until last year, when pitchers picked up on his “I chase sliders” issue

🚨Owen Ayers Interview🚨 • From 19th round pick to Top 20 prospect • How he improved ahead of an incredible breakout Arizona Fall League performance • Mini scouting reports on his pitchers 📺: youtu.be/dflH4V-9LN0?... 🍎: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c... 🔗: outofthevines.com/2026/01/27/c...

Owen Ayers interview. First thing tomorrow morning.

MLB Pipeline ran an update of its Top 100 Prospects on July 1st of last year. This year, that could time out perfectly for Jaxon Wiggins to have proven his 2025 breakout was legit and be on the cusp of his MLB debut. It could line up for a major jump in the rankings… Top 20?

Checking in on former Cubs prospect Jared Young, who has been a stud in AAA & the KBO in recent years .995 OPS in ‘23 in Iowa .917 OPS in ‘24 in Memphis 1.080 OPS in ‘24 in KBO .956 OPS in ‘25 in Syracuse Now 30, he’s deserved a consistent shot in the bigs for quite some time

Cubs players in the MLB Network #Top100RightNow over the last 10 seasons

This MLB offseason has rocked properly

My prediction for which Cubs prospects will be non-roster invitees to Spring Training this year (remember, this doesn’t include 40-man rostered prospects) RHP Connor Noland RHP Will Sanders RHP Grant Kipp 1B Jonathon Long OF Brett Bateman IF BJ Murray Jr C Ariel Armas

It really sucks that Marquee is hardly gonna show any Spring Training games now. I fell in love with prospects like PCA and Owen Caissie when I watched them several years ago in Spring Training games. I remember a game where Pete, Owen, and Triantos all played - so many redheads!

Catching you up on the last week of Cubs prospect news and notes including international free agency, positional rankings, how Marquee’s news impacts prospects, and views of guys in Mesa. ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/01/21/m...

Casual Cubs fan: “Awesome, the Brewers are trading away their best player!” In the weeds Cubs fan: “Oh no.”

Catching you up on the last week of Cubs prospect news and notes including international free agency, positional rankings, how Marquee’s news impacts prospects, and views of guys in Mesa. ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/01/21/m...

If Andruw Jones’ prime would have been from ages 24-32 instead of 21-29 he would have been a Hall of Famer 8 years ago

For the night crowd, Jackson Kirkpatrick is a SUPER interesting guy. Signed out of Tread, Tyler Zombro’s old stomping grounds, and is now arguably the Cubs’ 2nd best relief prospect.

Lots of incredible stuff in here but this stood out the most: Of the 1,794 players that have been ranked on a Baseball America Top 100 list from 1990-2022, only 158 failed to reach the majors. BA is really, really good at this.

🚨New Prospect Interview🚨 Jackson Kirkpatrick joins the show to talk… • Getting signed out of Tread • What looks different in training at Tread vs. with the Cubs • Why it’s easier to bounce back from struggles in the minors than in college 🔗: linktr.ee/cubsondeck

Technical difficulties on the overnight upload for the podcast. New episode will be in your feeds later today!

After ‘17, the Cubs entered the offseason with a former top prospect who showed promise in CF (Almora). They passed on signing the FA representing his best outcome (Cain) That story rewrote itself this offseason at 3B with Shaw & Bregman, but this time the Cubs pulled the trigger

Dansby Swanson: “Thank God we have Nico.”

Has someone snapped a photo of Anthony Rizzo and Derrek Lee together? I’d like to frame it and put it on my nightstand.

Per various news sources - MLB had its 3rd straight year of attendance growth - 71 million+. And the World Series had the largest global audience since ‘92. Game 7 had double the number of viewers in the U.S. as Game 7 of the NBA Finals. So I’d say the answer is obvious.

The only reason you should want the Cubs to trade Nico Hoerner is if you’re a HUGE Scott Kingery fan and want to see him logging regular at-bats off the bench this year.

@matteddyba.bsky.social hey Matt! Are you posting Park Factors over at BA this offseason? It’s one of my favorite things every year (yes, I am a nerd)

Is the Dodgers being this behemoth causing a greater number of people to watch baseball or fewer people? Until the answer is the latter, the league ain’t gonna do a thing about it (and I think that’s okay!)

Kyle Tucker will be making $60 million per season with the Dodgers. If he wanted to, he could pay the salaries of an MLB team’s entire minor league system… 13 times over.

It’s the end of Day 1 of the IFA signing period and by my count, I’ve got 29 new Cubs prospects ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/01/15/i...

Cubs 2025 14th round pick, Kaemyn Franklin, threw off the mound for the first time in 11 months today as he returns from surgery. The overslot signee is the younger brother of Cubs prospect Kohl, and should make his way up to full-season ball later this year.

How many more years of this do we need to see from the Dodgers before they overtake the Yankees in terms of worldwide brand/evil empire status/historic face of the sport?

A few more IFA signings coming in ⬇️ outofthevines.com/2026/01/15/i...