Prospect Check: Is Jonathan Long the real deal?
Since Opening Day the 23-year-old corner infielder has given Iowa a thunderous .343 /.413 /.522 slash with six homers and a .935 OPS through 202 plate appearances. That raw line on its own stands out, but the Statcast layer is what really pops: his average exit velocity sits right around 93 mph, 58 percent of his balls in play leave the bat at 95+ mph, and a 12-degree launch angle keeps him peppering every gap.
Dig a little deeper and you see the friendly confines of Principal Park helping out. At home he’s rocking roughly a .410 average and 1.08 OPS; on the road those settle closer to .290 and .820, the kind of split you expect when the jet stream in Des Moines is blowing out.
The platoon numbers tell a similar story. Right-handers are getting mauled—think .400/.449/.592—while lefties have held him to about .208/.333/.358 by living on the outer edge and spinning back-foot sliders. That gap will decide whether he becomes an everyday bat or needs a platoon partner in Chicago.
One other context flag: the BABIP sits at .447. With contact this loud he’ll run a high average on balls in play, but AAA hitters usually live in the .310 range, so some regression is inevitable. Even if that drops him into the .280s, you’re still talking about a hitter who pairs plus raw pop with a double-digit walk rate—plenty of thump for a first-base profile.
Where does it go from here? If he adds just a couple of degrees of loft, the liners that are smacking the wall today start clearing it, pushing his true-talent range toward 25-plus homers. Tighten the approach against southpaws and you’re looking at a cost-controlled middle-order bat who could hit .270/.340/.480 in the majors; leave that left-handed hole exposed and he’s still a fearsome right-handed masher on the strong side of a first-base platoon.
Either way, Jonathon Long has put himself firmly on the Cubs’ 2025 radar—and the Statcast data says the breakout is real