Chicago Cubs may have their first baseman of the future in Matt Mervis

The 2020 Major League Baseball Draft was an oddity for the Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball as the COVID-19 Pandemic limited the draft to only five rounds and created a plethora of undrafted free agents that otherwise would have been selections in a regularly formatted draft.

The Cubs may have one of the steals of the 2020 undrafted free agent class in former Duke University first baseman Matt Mervis.

In a normal draft, Mervis likely would have been a Day 2 selection. Instead, the first baseman went undrafted and that allowed the Cubs to sign him as a free agent

Mervis spent most of the 2021 season with the Cubs’ Class-A affiliate but did have a four-game stint with the Iowa Cubs, the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate. Across both affiliates, Mervis hit .209/.310/.367/.677 with 9 home runs.

Mervis’ 2021 season was nothing that would have placed him on the list of Cubs’ prospects to watch for during the 2022 season but the 9 home runs suggested that he does have some power in his bat.

Fast forward to the present day and Mervis is now one of the most discussed Cubs prospects because of the season that he is having.

Mervis began the 2022 season with the Cubs’ high Class-A affiliate and had a clip of .350/.389/.650/1.039 to go along with 7 home runs. Mervis. Mervis finished the 2022 first half with the Cubs’ Double-A affiliate and continued to rake with a line of .301/.370/.596/.966 to go along with 14 home runs.

Between both affiliates, Mervis has a total of 21 home runs and leads all of minor league baseball with 80 RBIs. Given how Mervis has dominated at both the high Class-A level and Double-A level, the Cubs have promoted the first baseman to Triple-A.

Mervis is now positioning himself to where he will likely be the favorite to open the 2023 season as the Cubs’ starting first baseman assuming he continues to find success in 2022 with the Iowa Cubs.

Chicago Cubs prospect Matt Mervis has made an impact on the organization.

Since the Cubs traded first baseman Anthony Rizzo to the New York Yankees at the 2021 Major League Baseball trade deadline, it has been unclear what the team’s plan is for the first base position in the long-term.

Frank Schwindel was a fun story during the second half of the 2021 season but his .238/.283/.383/.666 line this season would seem to validate why he never really had an opportunity at the Major League level prior to last season.

If Mervis is indeed the real deal, even if just his power, then that would be a huge victory for the Cubs. Mervis will have solved the long-term question for the Cubs at the first base position and that will allow the team to divert resources to other areas of need at the Major League level.