MLB Draft: Cubs select Nebraska RHP Carson Jasa in the 3rd round

After going with power bats in with their two second-round picks, the Cubs went with big right-hander in Nebraska right-hander Carson Jasa in the third.

While Jasa is a tall, 6’7” right-hander with a fastball in the 95-96 mile per hour range, what the Cubs likely found attractive are his big spin rates. In fact, Jasa doesn’t throw his fastball very often and when he does, he has trouble locating it. Instead, Jasa relies on a upper-80s slider with some hard break. He also has a slow, upper-70s knee-bending curve with a 12-6 movement. Those two breaking pitches are Jasa’s primary weapons. He also has a fringy mid-80s changeup that he’ll need if he wants to get left-handed hitters out and remain as a starter. The Cubs have had some success teaching new changeups to Cade Horton and Ben Brown, and maybe they think they can go down a similar path with Jasa.

Jasa is a redshirt sophomore who missed all of the 2024 season with Tommy John surgery. He returned in 2025 and mostly pitched out of the bullpen, where he struggled. Jasa managed just 18.2 innings in 2025 and he walked 18 batters in that time, compared to 24 strikeouts. He posted a poor 8.68 ERA his redshirt freshman year.

But this past season, Jasa moved to the Cornhuskers starting rotation and found much more success. Jasa made 16 starts and went 10-2 with a 3.59 ERA. Over 87.2 innings, Jasa struck out 117 batters and cut his walk rate by over 50 percent with 47 walks. Still too high, but a big improvement over his first year back from Tommy John.

MLB Pipeline ranked Jasa as the 173rd best prospect in the draft and Baseball America ranked him slightly better at 158. Once again, Keith Law at The Athletic is the outlier, as he ranked Jasa higher at 93. Law acknowledged the big command and control issues that Jasa has and the considerable reliever risk that goes with it, but he also thought Jasa had some high potential if he can learn to throw more strikes and command the zone better.

In Jasa, the Cubs are getting a project for the pitch lab. With Jasa’s huge size, strong spin rates and above-average velocity, there is a lot there to work with. But the challenge is for him to develop a better feel for pitching and a better command of the zone. Otherwise, there is a lot of relief risk or worse on Jasa.

Here’s some video of Jasa pitching against Ohio State in May.