He turned 19-years-old back in March, started at catcher for the World team in the Futures Game a little more than a week ago and now Miguel Amaya is the first Chicago Cubs prospect ranked in the top-100 in baseball in almost a year.
Starting with Javier Baez and Jorge Soler in 2014, the Cubs have been steadily promoted their highly-ranked prospects to the big leagues and in the case of Gleyber Torres, Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease, they’ve also been dealing them.
A minor-league system that was once the envy of MLB no longer has the same star-power, but after a year the Cubs’ farm once again has a top-100 prospect.
The @Cubs did not have a Top 💯 prospect last week.
But that changed today.
A brand new update: https://t.co/dqHdpLIFGk pic.twitter.com/SxVhIPMei2
— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) July 23, 2018
Amaya was signed in 2015, as a 16-year-old out of Panama. Last year he played at short season A-Ball with the Eugene Emeralds and as a 19-year-old the catcher is playing in his first full season as a pro in 2018.
The results have been good at South Bend, where Amaya is sporting a .272/.344/.459 slash line. Again, he’s only 19 and Amaya may be the next big prospect for the Cubs, who at this point aren’t willing to trade him for a rental.
Via The Athletic.
Team officials make it sound highly unlikely that the Cubs would be willing to give up top catching prospect Miguel Amaya for a rental relief pitcher like Britton, who’s making $12 million this year and will become a free agent after this season. Amaya is only 19 years old and already excelling at Class-A South Bend, putting him on a trajectory that’s similar to Gleyber Torres and Eloy Jiménez, the uber-prospects traded for Aroldis Chapman and Quintana. Amaya is a different type of talent, but the Cubs don’t want to sell low before the rest of the industry sees what he might become – a two-way catcher with consistent offensive production, presence behind the plate and leadership qualities.
Here’s part of Baseball America’s scouting report on Amaya.
Amaya’s defense ranks ahead of his offense at this point, which helped him make such a jump as a teen catcher. His intangibles fit the position; he has leadership skills, plays with energy and has the desire to catch. He also has catch-and-throw skills, with soft hands and the agility to block balls in the dirt. His arm strength was just fringy when he signed but has improved to above-average with 1.95-second pop times, and he threw out 41 percent of basestealers in 2017.
Obviously the Cubs already have Willson Contreras, but as we’ve seen before, top prospects serve more than one purpose to a team that is contending for World Series titles.
Maybe it won’t be this year, but in a few more seasons you might be hearing Amaya’s name pop up when the trade rumors begin to heat during the summer.
For now, fans can sit back and enjoy tracking the progress of Amaya down in the minors, as he’ll continue to rise in the rankings.
