Baseball America refreshed its Cubs organizational top 30 for midseason, folding in this summer’s draft class alongside half a season of performance. The reshuffle is substantial.
Josiah Hartshorn now sits at the top, with Jefferson Rojas second and Kane Kepley third. Owen Ayers, Jaxon Wiggins and Ethan Conrad follow. The full 30, along with updated scouting reports on each, lives at Baseball America.
The moves for Hartshorn, Ayers and Kaleb Wing were coming. Wing’s placement arguably still undersells him, since an unspecified injury interrupted his season. Kepley is the clearest case of BA sitting ahead of the industry, viewing him as a top-100 talent, a more aggressive read than the other services carry.
Two 2026 draftees landed inside the top 10 right away: right-hander Cade Townsend and outfielder Caden Sorrell. Some of that room opened through graduations, with Pedro Ramirez, Kevin Alcantara and Moises Ballesteros all off the list now. Even accounting for the vacancies, slotting a pair of brand-new draftees that high says something about how BA reads them.
The pitching side finally caught up in raw numbers. Breakouts from Brooks Caple, Jace Beck, Mason McGwire and Emilio Ramos, plus Townsend and fellow draftee Carson Jasa, push the 30 to an even split between arms and bats. Where it counts, the distribution is still lopsided. Twelve of the top 16 are position players.
Jostin Florentino is the interesting hold. He has not built on his 2025 mini-breakout, and his strikeout rate has climbed toward 40 percent across his last five starts at South Bend. BA is staying with him regardless, and at 21 he has the runway to justify that.
Behind Florentino sits a large block of arms without enormous ceilings, mostly back-of-the-rotation starters and relief pieces. That profile does not generate much excitement. A system that produces a steady supply of major-league-ready depth arms still gets real value out of it.
Ty Southisene at No. 10 is the placement worth arguing about. He just turned 21 and is hitting .321/.448/.372 with a 122 wRC+ at High-A. The production is real. It is also heavily walk-driven, and walk rates tend to be the first thing better pitching takes away, unless the damage on contact climbs with it.
Two names that could have fit near the back of the list: Brett Bateman and Jose Escobar.
