​After chasing power in the second round of the MLB Draft with Caden Sorrell, the Cubs doubled down on power by selecting Florida State first baseman Myles Bailey with their compensation pick in Round 2. This pick came as a reward for losing Kyle Tucker to free agency. Like first-rounder Cade Townsend, Bailey is a draft-eligible sophomore from a power conference, this time the ACC rather than the SEC. Bailey emerged as one of the best power hitters in college baseball in 2026, delivering 19 home runs in 56 games as a freshman and then striking 13 home runs in just 26 games as a sophomore before an ankle injury on a slide into second base sidelined him for the remainder of the season.
Some scouts assign an 80-grade to Bailey’s raw power, the highest possible mark, though his contact issues temper his in-game power grade. He’s a physically imposing presence at 6’4” and 255 pounds, with a long, uppercut swing that can launch balls out to all fields, and when he pulls the ball, the results can be especially prodigious. The exit velocities off his bat are among the elite in the game.
The primary drawback, as noted earlier, is Bailey’s propensity to strike out. He improved his strikeout rate from a troublesome 31% as a freshman to a still concerning but not outright disqualifying 24.6% in his sophomore year. That figure could have risen had he faced the tougher ACC pitching over a full season, since his eight conference games were the only ones that fully tested him at the conference level (his non-conference slate included two games against Florida, one against Auburn, and one versus Nebraska). The prevailing view is that Bailey did refine his swing during his sophomore season, which is a positive sign. Another bit of encouraging news is that, despite the swing-and-miss tendency, he also displays patience, taking bad pitches and drawing walks. In other words, he has real three-true-outcomes potential: home runs, walks, and strikeouts.
Bailey does run well for his size, but he profiles almost exclusively as a first baseman. The positive is that he has shown nimbleness around the bag and could be an above-average defensive first baseman. The Cubs rarely draft pure first basemen, especially not early on the second day, so selecting Bailey signals a strong belief in his power potential and a conviction that he can improve his contact enough to unlock it.
MLB Pipeline had Bailey ranked as the 83rd-best draft prospect, and Baseball America pegged him at 96, which aligns with a typical 75th overall selection range. Keith Law of The Athletic did not include him in his Top 100, reflecting Law’s greater emphasis on contact and swing decisions than some of his peers. Bailey represents the kind of risk-reward pick that some Cubs fans and analysts have long wanted the club to roll with earlier in the draft—a high-risk, high-reward bet that could yield a standout middle-of-the-order bat if everything breaks right. There is genuine All-Star upside here, and in a perfect scenario, Bailey could develop into a hitter capable of hitting 30-plus home runs with a solid on-base percentage, provided he can translate his raw power into consistent, quality contact.