The Cubs went with a very intriguing player profile for their second-round pick in the 2025 MLB Draft.

Enter Kane Kepley, a 5-foot-8, 180-pound outfielder who makes getting on base no matter what the name of his game.

That’s the kind of player MLB teams want in a leadoff man, which is why Dan Kantrovitz, the Cubs’ vice president of scouting, liked Kepley so much.

“He’s a menace out there,” Kantrovitz told Marquee Sports Network’s Elise Menaker, Lance Brozdowski, Jim Callis and Alex Cohen during “Road to Wrigley Live” on Thursday. “At our (draft) combine interview, you could just feel the energy. He wants to get to the big leagues as fast as he can.”

Watch the full, exclusive interview with Dan Kantrovitz only on the Marquee Sports Network app.

The 21-year-old Kepley, whom the Cubs selected No. 56 overall out of the University of North Carolina, only just made his professional debut with the Single-A Myrtle Beach Pelicans after being assigned to the team on Aug. 5. In his first nine plate appearances, he’s racked up three hits (.429), a stolen base, a walk and two runs scored.

He’s also not afraid to take one for the team, which showed when he was hit by a pitch in his first professional at-bat. That’s not a surprise for those who watched Kepley at UNC — he was hit 27 times this past season with the Tar Heels, a top-15 mark in all of NCAA Division I. As a result, his on-base percentage stood at a .451 in 61 games.

“A part of me wants to tell him to stop getting hit by so many pitches so he doesn’t get hurt,” Kantrovitz joked as he watched Kepley bat live in Myrtle Beach’s 9-0 win over the Fredericksburg Nationals. “I mean, that’s part of his game. It’s just gonna be there and that’s just his mentality — but I told him to back off the plate a little bit.”

On the basepaths, Kepley is equally as effective. He stole 45 bases — fourth-most in Division I — last season on 49 attempts. He swiped his first bag on Thursday night before coming around to score.

Kantrovitz watched on proudly with a smile on his face when Menaker mentioned how dirty Kepley’s uniform was already.

“This guy, when he’s stealing bags — his momentum is carrying him,” Kantrovitz said. “(It’s like) those Trea Turner slides where he’s not gonna stop.”

There’s also Kepley’s elite plate discipline, which led him to take twice as many walks (44) as he struck out (22) in his last college season. He hit .291 with 13 doubles, seven triples and three home runs.

“When you think of the three pillars we look at — contact, decision-making and damage — he’s in the upper 90th percentile on contact and decision-making,” Kantrovitz said of Kepley. “Hitting for damage, home runs, that’s obviously not part of his game. But when he gets to the big leagues, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s got 10 pumps or so in a year.”

Kepley, along with five other Cubs draft picks from this year, will already debut on MLB Pipeline’s updated Top 30 prospects list next week, according to Callis. It’s another chapter in the unprecedented rise of a kid who began his college career as a walk-on at Liberty University. But Kepley’s unwavering on-field mentality has him on a path to The Show, and he could be one of the more exciting players the Cubs have in their system.

“He’s our guy. He can do everything out there,” Kantrovitz said. “It’s fun to watch.”