One key to his rise to become the Cubs' No. 5 prospect is that he's cut that consistently this season -- to 12.4 percent at High-A South Bend and 10.4 percent since his promotion to Double-A Knoxville. While that's still higher than average, the fact that he's improving against tougher competition -- paired with the highest strikeout rate among Cubs Minor Leaguers (31.7 percent) -- shows he's on the right track.
A slight change to his repertoire has also enabled him to throw more strikes. In previous seasons, his best secondary pitch had been a slider that averaged 85.6 mph and featured so much depth that it didn't consistently land for strikes. This spring, the Cubs had him switch to a spike grip that he can throw harder (87.6 mph) and with more bullet spin. It doesn't move nearly as much but still generates a 44 percent whiff rate.
"They came up to me and agreed that they should try to get me to throw this pitch with this grip, and I used to try to throw a spiked curveball. I could never throw it," Wiggins said. "And so I was just like ‘Oh, it's a spike.' Having that in the back of my mind was like I've never been able to throw like something with a spike, but I guess it's different from the curveball and slider. And I just trusted it. From then on out, it's gotten better and better and better."
Wiggins' 2025 season has faced some small setbacks. His shoulder wasn't feeling great after his June 20 start, and the club decided to give him some extra time off to recover. He returned for a two-inning start on July 19 -- with five strikeouts and no hits or runs allowed -- and will continue to ease back to action.
Still, his emergence has been key for a Cubs farm system that is thin on pitching. Heading into the season, only six of the team's Top 30 prospects were pitchers, and one has already graduated (Cade Horton) while three have been injured for much or all of the season (Brandon Birdsell, Brody McCullough, Drew Gray).
Wiggins feels like he's becoming even better than the pitcher he thought he'd become before his Tommy John surgery. And the Cubs are thrilled with their player development success.
"He's moved from what I consider ‘out-athleting the competition,' he's just a supreme athlete with big powerful pitches and stuff to becoming an actual refined professional pitcher," Cubs director of player development Jason Kanzler said. "And that's a great combination, that's a great development for him. He's not a thrower anymore. He's a pitcher. And with his power stuff, that's very exciting."
