Chicago Cubs must resist the urge to trade this against-the-grain top prospect

The Chicago Cubs are in an interesting position as they head into the 2026 season.

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They’re staring down the reality that many of their top assets may only be with the club for one more season. Nico Hoerner, Seiya Suzuki, Ian Happ, Carson Kelly, Jameson Taillon, and Matthew Boyd will all be eligible for free agency after the 2026 season. This means that there will be a certain “win now” feeling to the coming year.

On the other hand, though, the feeling is that they will be putting an emphasis on youth this coming year as well, with Owen Caissie, Moises Ballesteros, Kevin Alcantara, and possibly pitcher Jaxon Wiggins given a shot at full-time big league play alongside the other early-20-something talent currently at the major league level.

The Cubs will have to find the right balance of new and old to make things work. Some feel that they very well could trade some of their young talent, though, in an “all-in” bid to win big next season, before the team loses much of its core.

Whatever path they take, they absolutely, positively need to resist the urge to trade Moises Ballesteros.

Moises Ballesteros is not the Chicago Cubs’ kind of player

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The 21-year-old left-handed hitting savant is a sought-after asset among MLB front offices. He could be made available, too, given the Cubs’ reliance on cold data, analytics, and the calculated expectations resulting from how things are SUPPOSED to be with young prospects.

At a dumpy 5-foot-8 and more than the 215 lbs. listed, Ballesteros doesn’t project to be a major league talent with a long upside. He’s also a player without a position, too clumsy for his original catcher spot and too physically limited for his secondary first base role. His very presence flies in the face of the Cubs’ fixation on multi-tool versatile players who can run and play sound defense as well as produce offensively.

But Ballesteros can hit. He can really, really hit. He was named the Cubs minor league player of the year in both 2023 and 2024 on the weight of his bat, alone, as he fumbled to develop as a catcher.

A bat-only star in the making

Last year, he showcased some of his hitting prowess in his cups of coffee at the major league level, slashing .298/.394/.474 in a small sample size of just 66 regular season plate appearances spread out over three separate call-ups. He never once looked overwhelmed and he just went about his business of hitting, as he’s done at every level of pro ball he’s passed through en route to the majors. At Triple-A Iowa last season, he slashed .316/.385/.473 with 13 home runs.

Matthew Trueblood of North Side Baseball recently wrote about the young Venezuelan’s hitting prowess, as observed from his big league run, highlighting the underlying bat-to-ball ability that has pushed him through the Cubs farm system so quickly.

Per Trueblood:

“Ballesteros has a really good swing. That was the key takeaway from his stint in Chicago, late in the campaign. His bat speed (72.7 miles per hour, on average, although in fewer than 100 competitive swings) is above average, and he does that with a short stroke that can handle the high fastball. He also showed the ability to turn on the ball and punish pitchers who miss with anything on the inner half, including hitting one home run in Pittsburgh in September that one simply can’t hit if one doesn’t have above-average power.

He has great feel for contact, especially within the strike zone, and he made progress even within the 2025 season in terms of not chasing outside the zone. Ballesteros looks like a good big-leaguer, and one who’s ready to take over a full-time job in 2026. He’s accumulated nearly 800 plate appearances with the Iowa Cubs; he doesn’t need any more.”

Ballesteros’ future as a Cub

“He’s been super impressive,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said of Ballesteros, late in the season. “Obviously, the production has been really good, but I think even the underlying numbers – you look at his walk-to-strikeout ratio and things – that’s hard to do as a 21-year-old in the big leagues in September. He’s a really good hitter. And there’s more to his game than that.”

It’s hard not to be impressed with what Ballesteros has done throughout his career as a Cubs prospect. It’s especially impressive that he’s maintained a near-.300 batting average throughout several levels of the farm system, while also working overtime trying to learn a complex position like catcher.

It leads one to wonder what this talented hitter could achieve as a full-time designated hitter, with his full focus directed solely on hitting.

Ballesteros definitely doesn’t look the part of a stud offensive beast. But neither did Tony Gwynn or former Cub Kyle Schwarber. Overall, the young Cub will likely fall short of Gwynn’s pure hitting ability and Schwarber’s raw power, but somewhere in between Gwynn and Schwarber would be a nice place in which to settle when it comes to career projection.

This is, of course, if Hoyer and company can resist the urge to judge Ballesteros’ big league viability based on what data tells them a big league star is supposed to look like.

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Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-trade-ballesteros-hoyer