SnogBlogy

Jaxon Wiggins is supposed to provide the obvious answer to this question with his future performance: Why did the Cubs use their second pick in the 2023 MLB Draft on a pitcher who did not pitch this year?

Until Wiggins finishes the signing process, fully recovers from Tommy John surgery and competes in professional baseball, his selection represents an interesting snapshot of an updated “Cubs Way” in scouting and player development.

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Wiggins’ future will also be viewed in the context of how the Cubs received the No. 68 pick — as compensation for Willson Contreras signing with the Cardinals.

Cubs vice president of scouting Dan Kantrovitz memorably described Wiggins as a “deluxe athlete” during a video conference at the end of the first day of the draft: “Some of the stuff he was doing at Arkansas was just literally off the charts when it came to strength and conditioning.”

With the 68th pick, the @Cubs select @RazorbackBSB right-handed pitcher Jaxon Wiggins, No. 103 on the Top 250 Draft Prospects list.

Watch live: https://t.co/1s1j9XMVvD pic.twitter.com/qVR0YQ7vRl

— MLB Draft (@MLBDraft) July 10, 2023

Wiggins, now listed at 6-foot-6 and 225 pounds, was such a good high school basketball player that he was chosen to play in an Oklahoma Coaches Association all-state game. The Cubs also had unique insights into Wiggins’ background through Blaine Kinsley, the organization’s director of strength and conditioning and performance nutrition. Kinsley spent the last five years as the director of strength and conditioning for the Arkansas baseball program.

“It definitely provided the opportunity to extract a little bit more information,” Kantrovitz said.

The area scout who recommended Wiggins, Ty Nichols, was involved in the selections of the college pitchers the Cubs grabbed in the first rounds of the last two drafts: Jordan Wicks (Kansas State) and Cade Horton (Oklahoma). Seven Arkansas players were chosen in this year’s draft. The Cubs also selected three Razorbacks in the previous two drafts: pitcher Connor Noland, outfielder Christian Franklin and catcher Casey Opitz.

That volume of talent, a history with the Arkansas coaching staff and the substantial investments at the upper levels of college baseball in recent years are all factors when evaluating a prospect like Wiggins.

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“Some of these schools in the SEC just do such an amazing job on the development side,” Kantrovitz said. “For a while, we were trying to pick the brains of some of the folks in some of these top college programs just to try to learn something, because in some regards they were doing some things that we weren’t. Hopefully, we’ve caught up. But you look at a school like Arkansas or Vanderbilt — all those schools in the SEC — it’s just a really first-class operation.

“They tend to do everything right. Whether a player is injured on the rehab front, whether it’s just standard strength and conditioning, or whether that’s maybe even a pitch lab that some of them now have, that’s definitely been a recent development in college baseball that we’ve tried to keep up with.”

The Cubs project Wiggins, 21, to eventually return to action with mid-to-upper 90s velocity and a powerful slider. The organization’s pitching group, which has been overhauled in recent years, sees a chance for him to develop a curveball. Untapped potential is the big idea for a pitcher who posted a 6.17 ERA in two seasons with the Razorbacks. Wiggins also piled up 110 strikeouts across 89 innings in a hybrid role (34 games/19 starts), contributing to a team that reached the College World Series last year.

The Cubs took a calculated gamble with the No. 7 pick in last year’s draft, highly valuing Horton’s performance during Oklahoma’s College World Series run after he missed the entire 2021 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.

“The unfortunate reality is that it’s not uncommon,” Kantrovitz said. “To that end, it’s not something that we shy away from when a pitcher is recovering. We do want to make sure that we reviewed the surgery notes, that our team doctors have looked at that ahead of time, that we’re familiar with where he is in the rehab process and that he’s on track. We are confident of that at this point. We do think (Wiggins) is on that upward trajectory and should be fully healthy next year.”

(Photo: Wesley Hitt / Getty Images)

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