Out of the Cubs’ five picks in the 2020 MLB draft, Jordan Nwogu could best be described as a lottery ticket. A physical specimen, Jordan was taken by the Cubs in the third round after a 2+ year career at the University of Michigan where he actually walked on. Nwogu has huge potential for power combined with some rare speed and he could be a guy that the Cubs could be considered to have stolen in the draft.
Basic Info
Weight – 235 pounds
Bats – Right
Throws – Right
From Ann Arbor Michigan
Age – 21
Nwogu was born and raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Despite having several offers to go play football, he decided to walk on at the University of Michigan and play baseball while he pursued a degree in computer science engineering. From the get go, he was a success. As a freshman he hit .349 with six home runs and 29 RBI and only struck out 34 times. He earned All BIG 10 Second Team honors and was a member of the All BIG 10 freshman team.
As a sophomore, Nwogu took it to a whole other level. He hit .321 with 12 home runs and 46 RBI along with an on base percentage of .435. He was an offensive catalyst for the team that came close to winning the College World Series in 2019. As a designated hitter, he made Second Team All-America and First Team BIG 10, as well as earning Academic All-Conference honors.
As for 2020, Nwogu only got in 15 games of action before the pandemic hit. He was hitting .353 when the season stopped.
Nwogu’s greatest asset is his physicality. He’s an amazing athlete who has shown the ability to adapt his swing over the course of time as it’s not the most fluid thing in the world. He’s generating home runs but it’s more due to his brute strength and quick hands than as a result of his swing path.
One thing the Cubs are going to adjust is his swing. Nwogu seems fine with that as long as he improves. Nwogu already looks to be on board. He told Sports Illustrated the following:
“I think this team likes me just as much as I like them, and I feel like they value me even higher than where they took me. They are also very big on analytics and data. I was kind of a sleeper, and they really liked that, and they are going to use player development to get me to my potential.”
As for his future, most publications think there is some high upside here. Here is what FanGraphs had to say:
“Big time raw power, a left field fit as more of a plus football-type athlete than baseball. Nwogu is still a bit raw in pitch selection but has round one potential.”
MLB Pipeline, on the other hand, said,
“He has an unorthodox but quick right-handed swing and his lower half seems out of sync with the rest of his body, but his impressive hand-eye coordination makes it work. He controls the strike zone reasonably well but still has to show he can make adjustments to handle breaking balls and changeups.”
To transform into a power hitter, it’s not going to take much. After a while, his muscle memory should take over if he is as good an athlete as everybody thinks. Then it just becomes a matter of repetition and process to keep in that swing pattern. The issue is going to be when he has success that he doesn’t revert or slip back into bad habits. He needs to stay on the right path (pun intended).
In college, Nwogu spent most of his time as the team’s designated hitter. The DH is coming to the National League this year and likely again in 2022. That could be a positive for Nwogu. He can play the outfield and he’s athletic enough to do so, but he’s going to need a whole lot of instruction for him to be serviceable in left at the major league level.
Look for him to probably start in South Bend in 2021, at least for a little while.
Cubs Central 