The Cubs Look Like Geniuses for Not Trading Jaxon Wiggins

Who is Jaxon Wiggins?

Jaxon Wiggins, Just Baseball’s No. 82 prospect, was selected 68th overall by the Chicago Cubs in the 2023 MLB Draft.

When you take a look at his time at the University of Arkansas, you would start to scratch your head as to why he was considered to be a first-round pick before his 2023 season.

As a freshman in 2021, Wiggins pitched to a 5.09 ERA with 28 strikeouts and 14 walks. He had made 17 total appearances that year, 13 of them coming out of the bullpen for the Razorbacks.

He wasn’t penciled in as a starter in their rotation until 2022, where he made 15 starts. In those starts, he went 6-3 with a 6.55 ERA, 82 strikeouts, and 43 walks in just 66 innings pitched.

He then had his 2023 season cut short after he was shut down with an elbow injury that eventually led to him undergoing Tommy John surgery and missing all of his Junior year.

Again, how does a pitcher with such bad peripherals, coming off a major arm surgery, convince scouts that he should be considered a top prospect in that draft class? Well, it was the “high-octane” arsenal that he flashed in his two years that had his name pop up on their radars.

It was clear that he had convinced the Cubs of this, as they signed him to a signing bonus well over slot at $1,401,500.

Wiggins the Prospect

When you first look at Jaxon, you’ll see a tall, long, and lanky body. Then, when you start to see him throw, you begin to notice the true athlete that he is.

The aforementioned high-octane arsenal does, in fact, live up to its name. Wiggins has four pitches that are headlined by a fastball that consistently sits in the high-90s, occasionally touching triple digits. The fastball has some run to it that causes lefties in particular to struggle against the pitch as it begins to move away from them as it approaches the plate.

The changeup would be his next best pitch, which flirts between 85-88 mph with good vertical separation and arm-side fade that makes it a good swing-and-miss pitch to put hitters away. Both the fastball and changeup profile as plus pitches.

Though sometimes confused by a cutter because of its short horizontal movement, his slider does have a tight gyro-like spin to it that he predominantly uses against right-handed hitters, but has almost an equal amount of success against lefties as well. The fourth pitch would be a curveball that just does not get as much usage at the time.

He can command each pitch at an above-average rate, too.

Though there was much to hope and build on as a prospect coming over into professional baseball, the Cubs were confident that the talent would be able to translate to the next level, even post-surgery.

Jaxon’s Professional Career

Wiggins was entering his second year pitching in professional baseball in 2025 after spending all of 2023 rehabbing from his surgery.

Across the two years as a whole, Jaxon owns a career 3.02 ERA across 35 appearances, 34 coming as a starter, in 131 innings pitched with 158 strikeouts and 67 walks.

It is 2025 in particular that has been different.

Just this year alone, across three different levels, he has pitched to a 1.89 ERA in 71.1 innings with 87 strikeouts and 31 walks. Yes, the walk numbers are a little high, but it is a vast improvement from when he first started pitching back in Arkansas.

He has been limiting hitters to just a 64.5% contact rate since the start of the year, with a swinging strike rate of 16.4% to go along with the 10.9 K/9. Opponents have been limited to a .150 batting average across all levels.

Were the Cubs Right?

Hindsight is obviously 20/20. You look at a Cubs team now that seems to be sputtering to the end of the season, just trying to get into the postseason as healthy as possible. The need for arms is now more prevalent than ever.

Matthew Boyd has been great for the Cubs this year, definitely surpassing the expectations that many had for him coming into 2025. Shota battled injuries early on, but has now looked as if he has finally found his groove. Cade Horton has seemingly taken the league by storm ever since his debut, so much so that he is currently the betting favorite at BetMGM for National League Rookie of the Year. Colin Rea and Jameson Taillon round out the rest of the rotation, but could have definitely been upgraded at the deadline.

The starter that the Cubs ended up trading for, Mike Siroka, quickly landed on the IL shortly after being acquired. When you are linked to arms like Sandy Alcantara, Edward Cabrera, Mitch Keller, and even Dylan Cease at points, the name every team was quick to try to pounce on was Wiggins. It even got to a point where it seemed a trade involving him was imminent when he was shut down from throwing without an injury designation.

There were also rumors floated around Eugenio Suárez and Alex Bregman filling their third base position after Matt Shaw’s slow start, but Shaw was able to turn it around post-All Star break and the Cubs set their sights solely on arms.

With the rapid rise that Jaxon Wiggins has made this year, even more so post-deadline when he was promoted to Triple-A Iowa, you could say that the Cubs likely made the right decision holding on to Jaxon, even if it came at the cost of missing out on an arm that could have potentially been the missing piece for their roster as they head towards the postseason.