The Chicago Cubs could be looking at a familiar kind of draft gamble when they go on the clock at No. 23: a talented college arm with injury baggage, but enough upside to make the risk worth it. In a new FanSided mock draft, Jed Hoyer lands on Coastal Carolina right-hander Cameron Flukey, a pitcher whose name has been circulating for all the right reasons and a few worrisome ones, too.
Flukey’s season was cut short by a rib injury, limiting him to just seven games. Even so, he entered 2026 as Baseball America’s Preseason College Pitcher of the Year, a reminder of how high his stock had climbed before the health setbacks slowed him down. He’s also in the news this week after entering the transfer portal, though most expect him to follow his former coach to South Carolina if his draft stock drops and he remains in college.
The reason Flukey still draws so much attention is simple: when he was on the mound, he looked like the kind of pitcher who can shoot up draft boards fast. As a sophomore in 2025, he racked up 118 strikeouts against just 24 walks over 101 2/3 innings, posted a 3.19 ERA and helped Coastal Carolina reach the College World Series. Had he stayed healthy and kept building on that breakout, he might have been sitting in the consensus top-10 range.
Instead, a stress fracture slowed his junior year and pushed him a little farther down the board than he was in the spring. That doesn’t mean the upside disappeared. MLB Pipeline still has the 21-year-old ranked 11th in the draft class, which tells you how much talent is still packed into the profile.
The stuff is the draw. Flukey brings a mid-to-upper 90s fastball, along with a curve that drops hard, plus a slider and change-up.
For a Cubs system that needs more high-end pitching talent, that kind of arsenal stands out immediately. The injury history is part of the equation, of course, but there may be some comfort in the fact that it wasn’t a shoulder or elbow issue.
Whether Hoyer ends up taking Flukey or another college pitcher, the message is the same: the Cubs need arms, and this draft is the place to start adding them. The first-round pick at No. 23 feels like the moment to begin rebuilding a pitching pipeline that can support Wrigley for years.
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