After chasing power in the second round of the MLB Draft with Caden Sorrell, the Cubs doubled down on power with Florida State first baseman Myles Bailey with their compensation pick in the second round. This is the pick the Cubs got for losing Kyle Tucker to free agency.
Like first-round pick Cade Townsend, Bailey is a draft-eligible sophomore from a power conference, this time the ACC rather than the SEC. Bailey was one of the best power hitters in college baseball in 2026. He hit 19 home runs in 56 games as a freshman and 13 in just 26 games as a sophomore before he injured his ankle sliding into second base and was out for the rest of the season.
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Some scouts put an 80, the highest possible grade, on Bailey’s raw power, although contact issues make his “in-game” power grade lower. He’s a big, powerful man at 6’4”, 255 with a big, long uppercut swing. He can hit it out of the park to all fields, but when he pulls it, the ball goes a very long ways. The exit velocities generated by Bailey’s bat are elite.
The downside, as alluded to earlier, is that Bailey strikes out a lot. He did cut his strikeout rate from a very troublesome 31 precent as a freshman to a concerning but not completely disqualifying 24.6 percent. Although he did only play eight conference games and presumably, his strikeout rate would have gone up against better ACC pitchers. (Although his non-conference schedule did include two games against Florida, one against Auburn and one versus Nebraska.) The general consensus is that Bailey did improve his swing his sophomore season, so that’s a positive sign. The one other piece of good news is that while Bailey does have a good deal of swing-and-miss, he also has the patience to take bad pitches and grab a walk. He certainly has a real three-true-outcomes (home run, walk, strikeout) potential.
While Bailey actually runs well for a guy his size, he’s also probably purely a first baseman. The good news is that he’s shown himself to be quite nimble there and he could be an above-average defensive first baseman.
The Cubs almost never take a pure first baseman in the draft and when they do, they usually wait until late on the second day. That they took Bailey with a second round pick means that they must really believe in that power potential and that they can get him to make enough contact that he can get to that impressive power.
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MLB Pipeline had Bailey as the 83rd-best draft prospect and Baseball America had him at 96, so generally in line with the 75th overall pick. Keith Law of The Athletic did not have him among his Top 100 picks, which makes sense as Law is much more wary of contact issues than many other evaluators.
Bailey is the kind of roll-the-dice pick that some wanted the Cubs to make with their first or second pick. There’s a real All-Star upside with Bailey. There’s a perfect world where Bailey hits 30+ home runs with an OBP of around .340 thanks to a lot of walks, even if the batting average remains low. There’s another world where Bailey is unable to overcome his contact issues and he washes out in Double-A. It’s a pick I’d feel better about in the third round than the end of the second, but if the Cubs really believe in the power and don’t think he’d have lasted until their next pick, I guess they had to take him here. It is a real departure from their normal approach, which I think is a good thing, at least.
The Cubs saw the medical reports on his ankle at the Draft Combine, so that’s clearly not something that bothers them. It seems unlikely to be chronic and if he remains at first base, any loss of foot speed would have a minimal impact.
First, watch Bailey hit this ball 468 feet as a freshman. This is one of the most impressive home runs you’ll see.
And here are some general highlights of Bailey as a sophomore, including some good defense at first base.
