The Chicago Cubs have spent plenty of time dealing with pitching frustration, and that backdrop makes every encouraging arm in the system stand out a little brighter. One of the newest reasons for optimism is already coming from the Arizona Fall League, where 2025 third-round pick Dominick Reid has opened eyes with the Mesa Solar Sox.
Through two starts, Reid has worked 12 innings and allowed only two runs while piling up a league-best 14 strikeouts. For a Cubs organization trying to uncover more homegrown pitching, that kind of start matters.
Reid wasn’t viewed as a blue-chip name on draft day. MLB Pipeline had him highest among major evaluators at No. 208, and he came into the draft as something of a scouting bet because of the limited amount of college innings he logged. Still, the profile had appeal: at Abilene Christian, he posted a 3.26 ERA in 88 1/3 innings with 112 strikeouts.
His first pro season didn’t go quite as smoothly. A shoulder impingement held him to 49 2/3 innings, and he finished with a 4.17 ERA at High-A.
For a more polished college arm with an elite 60-grade change-up, the expectation was that he might move faster than that. Instead, the year ended up being more of a setback than a launch.
That’s part of what makes the Fall League stretch so encouraging. Reid has already started to show a broader pitch mix, now using six different offerings instead of leaning mainly on the fastball-changeup combination that defined him before.
He told MLB.com there’s still work ahead with those additional grips, but the early returns have been there. Even with a four-seamer sitting in the low to mid-90s, he’s getting swing-and-miss against premium hitters like Sebastian Walcott and Aidan Miller, and his extreme extension is helping everything play up.
Mesa Solar Sox manager Daniel Wasinger has noticed. He’s been outspoken in his praise of Reid this fall and likes the way the right-hander is handling the moment.
"He's doing an incredible job with the run game when runners get on," he said. "He's just going out there with confidence, throwing strikes, getting outs, and that's all you could ask for."
Wasinger also sees real big-league upside if Reid keeps sharpening that expanded arsenal.
That’s the kind of development the Cubs need more of. Their pitching pipeline remains thin, and while the organization now has four arms among its top ten prospects heading into 2027, there still isn’t much immediate help coming. Reid, along with Jaxon Wiggins, is one of the pitchers who had been circled from the 2025 class, and he fits the type of bet the Cubs have to hit more often if they want better odds of turning prospects into rotation pieces.
For now, MLB has Reid ranked No. 28 on its prospect list. If he keeps dealing in the Fall League and carries this momentum into the 2027 minor league season, that number could move fast. The Cubs could use that kind of upward swing, and Reid is giving them a real shot at one.
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