{"id":580724,"date":"2026-02-19T08:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/580724\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T08:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T08:39:15","slug":"blue-jays-claim-ben-cowles-from-cubs-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/580724\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Jays Claim Ben Cowles From Cubs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"\">The Jays have claimed Ben Cowles off waivers from the Cubs. The Cubs DFAed him Sunday. The Jays put Bowden Francis on the 60-day IL to make room on the 40-man roster. Francis is going to be out all season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cowles has two options.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He\u2019s a right-handed-hitting infielder, 26 years old. He hasn\u2019t played in the majors yet. Last year he hit .235\/.300\/.371 with 9 home runs in 128 games in Triple-A<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Duane Pesice, at Bleed Cubbie Blue, has a profile on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bleedcubbieblue.com\/2025\/3\/6\/24377633\/2025-cubs-player-profiles-ben-cowles\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:him here;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">him here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He\u2019s a lifetime .268\/.365\/.426 in four seasons of Minor League ball, with 30 home runs and 158 RBI in 1,128 at-bats. Not great, but not too shabby. He could hit 1-15 dingers in The Show, hit .250 or so, walk enough to be .300+ OBP man. He\u2019ll take a bag if he can. Cowles is a slightly-less-effective Nico Hoerner type. He\u2019ll back up or start at short\/second in Iowa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">His contact bat helps his cause, but Cowles just doesn\u2019t bring enough to the table to beat out the people in front of him. But he\u2019s a fine platoon partner with Triantos and backup at second and short, and can play third in a pinch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He was #14 on Baseball America\u2019s top Cubs prospect list last year<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Baseball Prospects says:<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Prospects TLDR: Cowles\u2019 Double-A stats are a bit of a mirage, but he\u2019s a capable shortstop defender who provides enough offense to consider him a low-impact bench infielder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">It looks like he will be battling Leo Jimenez for the utility infielder role this spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jays have claimed Ben Cowles off waivers from the Cubs. The Cubs DFAed him Sunday. The Jays&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[146,5,16984,754,138,24,4245,161,1628,22104,23022,4,33,18,7000],"class_list":{"0":"post-580724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-arizona","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-ben-cowles","11":"tag-bowden-francis","12":"tag-chicago","13":"tag-chicago-cubs","14":"tag-chicagocubs","15":"tag-cubs","16":"tag-getty-images","17":"tag-leo-jimenez","18":"tag-mesa","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-nico-hoerner","21":"tag-san-diego-padres","22":"tag-the-jays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116096399037556692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}