Jul 3, 2025; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer speaks before a baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Guardians at Wrigley Field. Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Cubs Farm System Drops Significantly In MLB Rankings

Originally posted on Chicago Cubs on SI | By Nick Ziegler | Last updated Aug 13, 2025 10:17 AM ET

With the Chicago Cubs in a bit of a slump, the team is hopeful to see things start to improve shortly.

Even though things haven’t gone great of late for the Cubs, this is still a team that is comfortably in the playoffs if the season ended today. While they aren’t playing as well as they did in the first half of the year, a lot of the reason for that is their offense being in a major slump.

With All-Stars Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong both struggling, it has seemingly had a ripple effect on the lineup. Fortunately, players of that caliber, and especially in the case of Tucker, who has a proven track record, won’t be in a slump forever.

David Banks-Imagn Images

One of the reasons why Chicago has been able to build such a talented team in 2025 is because of their farm system. This is a unit that in recent years has been growing and developing, and now the Cubs are starting to reap the rewards. However, it is not easy to sustain success in the minors forever, and Chicago is finding that out.

MLB.com recently released their updated farm system rankings, and the Cubs saw a massive drop from eighth at the beginning of the year to 19th.

“The Cubs matched the White Sox for the biggest fall (11 places) since March, in part because their two best prospects at that time (Matt Shaw, Cade Horton) are now fixtures at Wrigley Field.”

This was a huge drop for Chicago, which ironically tied with their crosstown rivals for the biggest drop of 11 spots. For the Cubs, their drop is for good reason.

Does the System Still Have Talent?

David Banks-Imagn Images

The team has graduated two of their top prospects, Matt Shaw and Cade Horton, to the Majors. With both of those players being top prospects in the farm system, a drop was to be expected.

While Shaw has had some struggles in the Majors thus far, Horton has been a great addition to the starting rotation. The young right-hander very well might be starting a game in the playoffs for Chicago at the rate he is going.

Even though there was a significant drop, the Cubs still feature four prospects in the Top 100 in the minors. The team did have to part ways with some prospects to upgrade at the trade deadline, but they kept some of their top ones, with the team electing not to make a major splash.

With some of the prospects in the system seemingly being ready for a call-up and opportunity, it will be interesting to see how Chicago handles things this winter.

This article first appeared on Chicago Cubs on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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