Great Update on Cubs Prospect Kevin Alcántara

Kevin Alcántara has been one of the hottest prospects not just in the Cubs farm system, but across all of the minor leagues since June and it really felt deflating when he left a game earlier this week after he grabbed at his leg running to second base on a double. However, there's a great update on the top-100 prospect.

According to Sahadev Sharma, there doesn't seem to be any muscle strains or something else that's going to sideline Alcántara for a long period of time

Via The Athletic.

The Cubs need impact from their system, especially on the position player side. If there’s one player to focus on who could give that to the team sometime down the road, it’s Alcántara. After he left Wednesday’s game early with what appeared to be a right leg injury, the Cubs seemed to have avoided a bad scenario there as a league source said it was a knee contusion for him.

Just a knee bruise? Excellent. That's a huge sigh of relief for him, the Cubs and fans who have been following the center fielder this year.

Alcántara entered the 2023 season rated as a top-100 prospect on both Baseball America and MLB Pipeline’s lists. After a few updated re-rankings this season, Alcántara was completely dropped off both top-100 prospects lists and ever since then he's been on fire at the plate.

On Wednesday, when Alcántara was lifted during the middle of the game, the 21-year-old extended his on-base streak to 23 games, going 3-for-3. During this incredible stretch, the tall, right-handed hitter has posted a 218 wRC+ with a slash line of .375/.468/.688, a 1.156 OPS, while recording an impressive 14.9 BB%.

If you go back to the beginning of June, Alcántara has a .980 OPS and 174 wRC+ in 34 games, with six home runs, 27 RBI, 25 runs scored, nine doubles and a triple in 143 plate appearances. So yeah, let's just hope this knee bruise doesn't stop his momentum and Alcántara can come back as soon as possible so he can keep raking.

By the way, Alcántara was recently ranked back in the top-100 on MLB Pipeline's list, but that's nothing compared to Keith Law's ranking of the Cubs outfield prospect.

Law published his top-60 list earlier this week and he had Alcántara as the highest-ranked Cubs prospect, coming in at No. 14 overall.

Via The Athletic.

He’s already gotten substantially stronger just since the Cubs acquired him, and still has at least 20 pounds of muscle in his future, with 40-homer upside at his peak. He’s 6-6 and lanky, with improved coordination from when the Yanks signed him as a gangly 16-year-old, and is at least a solid-average defender in center. He has some more failure risk than most other prospects up in this range, but his control of the zone, ability to pick up spin, and willingness to go the other way all mark him as someone who’s advanced enough at age 21 to still carry superstar upside.

Law ended up with four Cubs prospects in his top-60 list, including their last two first-round picks.

Kevin Alcántara: 14th
Pete Crow-Armstrong: 18th
Cade Horton: 53rd
Matt Shaw: 55th

Law also brought up James Triantos as an honorable mention, rating him as one of the top-100 prospects if he did a ranking that long. The Cubs picked Triantos in the second round of the 2021 draft out of high school.