Vice president of scouting Dan Kantrovitz and the Chicago Cubs had a clear plan entering the 2024 MLB draft.
They expected to be hitter-heavy on Days 1 and 2 for Rounds 1-10 and then shift their focus to pitchers on Day 3 during Rounds 11-20.
“I think we obtained the right balance based on our assessment of the talent, the draft pool, as well as fulfilling whatever needs we might have in the system,” Kantrovitz said Tuesday at the conclusion of the three-day draft.
Kantrovitz doesn’t expect any surprises, anticipating all 20 players the Cubs selected will sign. They chose nine pitchers (six right-handers and three left-handers), seven infielders, two outfielders and two catchers.
Here are four takeaways from the Cubs’ 2024 draft.
1. They went college-heavy with their picks.
Only three of the Cubs’ 20 picks were high school players: shortstops Ronny Cruz (Miami Christian School in Florida) and Ty Southisene (Basic HS in Nevada) in the third and fourth rounds, respectively, and outfielder Eli Lovich (Blue Valley West HS in Kansas) in the 11th.
It marked the second straight year the Cubs’ draft skewed toward college players, something Kantrovitz described not as the organization’s philosophy but as a challenge that comes with taking prep players because of how much they tend to cost to sign.
“In certain rounds, your options are limited,” he said. “You try to be in position to draft and sign as many high school players as possible. You just at some point run out of room with the cap.”
Even taking just three prep players, Kantrovitz expects the Cubs’ bonus-pool allotment to skew toward those players as much as any team. Lovich will require a “pretty substantial investment” to buy out his commitment to Arkansas. Kantrovitz credited area scout Ty Nichols for “raising the flag early” on Lovich, identifying him as one of the better bats he saw all spring, not just in high school.
The 6-foot-4 Lovich, a left-handed hitter whom Perfect Game ranked as the No. 1 outfielder and No. 3 overall recruit in Kansas, posted a .402 average, .482 on-base percentage and 1.245 OPS with eight doubles, six triples, five home runs and 15 stolen bases his senior year.
Kantrovitz said Lovich put on a show in batting practice during a predraft workout at the Cubs complex in Mesa, Ariz., shagging fly balls and participating in high-performance testing.
“We’re pretty excited to watch his body just transform in the next couple of years and hopefully have that carryover to how hard he’s hitting the ball and some power numbers too,” he said. “But he’s a pretty exciting one.”
2. They valued performance against the best competition.
One common theme among many of the Cubs’ selections is their participation and success in the Cape Cod League.
It’s a group that includes Florida State third baseman Cam Smith (first round), College of Charleston third baseman Cole Mathis (second), UC San Diego third baseman Matt Halbach (10th), Grand Canyon right-hander Daniel Avitia (12th), Lipscomb left-hander Hayden Frank (15th), Georgia Southern right-hander Ben Johnson (17th) and Indiana right-hander Brayden Risedorph (20th).
“The trick is to try to get as much bulk as you can from a performance standpoint, from a statistical standpoint, and then also be able to have context with that bulk,” Kantrovitz said. “The way in which we can try to do that the most effectively is if it’s against the best competition, and that tends to happen in the Cape League and also in the SEC and some of the other major conferences. When we can get players that have bulk in both, it gives us that much more confidence that those numbers are going to translate, and then our equivalencies end up translating to what we might expect them to do.
“When they get into Low A and High A, many of the same players that they’re competing against were those players that they were competing against in the Cape League or the SEC, so you have a better idea of where their floor is.”
3. They landed one of the best defensive catchers in the country.
Major-league-caliber catchers can be difficult to find in the draft. When teams do identify some within the draft pool, it can be challenging to predict when they might go off the board, Kantrovitz said.
“And if you’re a team that takes them, that means you probably draft them a little bit earlier than teams would expect,” he added.
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That makes the pick of University of San Diego catcher Ariel Armas notable, particularly given his defensive pedigree. Between Armas’ defensive metrics and his accolades, his work behind the plate was considered among the best in the country.
Armas won the Gold Glove for Division I catchers last month after being named the West Coast Conference Defensive Player of the Year, and he was one of 16 semifinalists for the Buster Posey National Collegiate Catcher of the Year Award.
Armas, 21, owned a .998 fielding percentage, caught 15 attempted base stealers and led the country with 18.69 defensive runs saved — 3.58 more than the next-closest player.
“He’s got a cannon of an arm and just looks really natural back there, and he’s got pretty exceptional framing skills,” Kantrovitz said. “And because of this, when he put his framing, his caught stealing, his blocking, his receiving, when you put all those up against the other catchers both analytically and from a scouting standpoint, he stacks up pretty well.”
4. Plenty of power can be found among the college bats.
The Cubs are infusing more power into their system. Among the nine college position players they drafted, a couple certainly aren’t lacking thump.
Smith and Mathis — their top two picks — feature the type of upside and power potential that’s ideal in the first two rounds. Smith, 21, had a .654 slugging percentage and 39 extra-base hits as a draft-eligible sophom*ore at Florida State, while Mathis, who turns 21 on July 25, recorded a .650 slugging percentage and 33 extra-base hits in his junior season at Charleston.
“When you dig deeper,” Kantrovitz said of Mathis, “his chase rates, his in-zone contact rates, his exit velocities, his ability to really just hit the ball hard and in the air, keep the ball off the ground — which if you’re looking at that from a performance standpoint, that’s indicated just by some of the ground ball/fly ball rates — and he seems to do it fairly effortlessly too.
“He’s a pretty strong kid and he’s got a natural swing plane that lends itself to consistently hitting the ball in the air. And then with his size and strength, he ends up putting pretty good charge into it.”
Nicholls State first baseman Edgar Alvarez (eighth round) put up dominant numbers: a .405/.514/.678 slash line, 21 doubles and 13 home runs in 58 games. He also cut his strikeout rate while improving his walk rate from his junior to senior season. Although he is on the older side — he turns 24 in February — Alvarez, who also won the Division I Gold Glove this year at his position, was area scout Will Swoope’s “gut-feel guy” as a player who has baseball-card numbers that jump off the page, Kantrovitz said.
“He has a beautiful, pure swing,” Kantrovitz said. “As opposed to, like, just some gargantuan exit (velocities) or gaudy numbers, which actually he has both at times. … I think he could end up being a sleeper.”
UC Santa Barbara outfielder Ivan Brethowr and his 6-foot-6, 250-pound frame produce strong exit velocity and power to tap into. Brethowr, 21, connected for 10 doubles and 15 home runs this year along with a .275 average, .405 OBP and .968 OPS in 50 games.
“When you have that base, it ends up being somebody that is also pretty exciting,” Kantrovitz said. “He’s a pretty well-balanced hitter in addition to having some some juice. It’s good decision-making, it’s good contact skills. It’s generally square contact in the air.”
Cubs 2024 draft picks
- Round 1 (No. 14): Cam Smith, 3B, Florida State
- 2 (54): Cole Mathis, 3B, College of Charleston
- 3 (90): Ronny Cruz, SS, Miami Christian School
- 4 (120): Ty Southisene, SS, Basic HS (Nevada)
- 5 (153): Ariel Armas, C, San Diego
- 6 (182): Ryan Gallagher, RHP, UC Santa Barbara
- 7 (212): Ivan Brethowr, OF, UC Santa Barbara
- 8 (242): Edgar Alvarez, 1B, Nicholls State
- 9 (272): Brooks Caple, RHP, Lamar
- 10 (302): Matt Halbach, 3B, UC San Diego
- 11 (332): Eli Lovich, OF, Blue Valley West HS (Kan.)
- 12 (362): Daniel Avitia, RHP, Grand Canyon
- 13 (392): Evan Aschenbeck, LHP, Texas A&M
- 14 (422): Cameron Sisneros, 1B, East Tennessee State
- 15 (452): Hayden Frank, LHP, Lipscomb
- 16 (482): Christian Gordon, LHP, VCU
- 17 (512): Ben Johnson, RHP, Georgia Southern
- 18 (542): Thomas Mangus, RHP, Navarro CC (Texas)
- 19 (572): Owen Ayers, C, Marshall
- 20 (602): Brayden Risedorph, RHP, Indiana
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