CHICAGO -- Cade Townsend had been to Wrigley Field a handful of times when he was a kid. He remembers coming to games with his family a decade ago -- getting a chance to see the 2016 champions in person -- and has photos of himself wearing Cubs gear in the stands at the Friendly Confines.
“And now I’m sitting in the dugout,” Townsend said on Wednesday morning. “It’s pretty surreal.”
The Cubs used their first-round pick (No. 23 overall) to select the 21-year-old Townsend out of Ole Miss in the MLB Draft last month. Prior to Wednesday’s game against the White Sox, the highly-touted pitcher had Cubs gear on again -- a white home jersey with its famous blue pinstripes -- but this time with his last name across the back.
COMPLETE CUBS PROSPECT COVERAGE
Townsend had a chance to tour the old ballpark, checking out the home clubhouse that could have a locker for him in the next few years and walking around the field. The right-hander even played a little catch in his visit to Wrigley, getting an opportunity to envision himself as a member of the big league team down the road.
“I told my agents,” Townsend said, “the day before the Draft, I said, ‘Get me here, no matter what. This is where I want to be.’”
Leading up to the Draft, Townsend learned a lot about the organization from Cubs lefty and fellow Ole Miss alum Ryan Rolison, who the prospect (No. 4 on Pipeline’s Top 30 list for the North Siders) looks up to like a “big brother.” Townsend also hit it off with the team’s pitching infrastructure leadership in their pre-Draft conversations.
From the jump, Townsend felt he would mesh well with the Cubs’ player development staff, given the way they talked about pitching, analytics and processes. And once he heard his name called in the Draft by Chicago -- which gave him a $3.1 million signing bonus -- the righty was on his way to the team’s complex in Arizona to get to work.
“The day after, I flew out to Arizona on that first flight in the morning,” Townsend said. “Ever since then, it’s just been on go. It’s working out every day, throwing every day, just trying to get better. It’s a process and that’s what I love.”
In the 2026 season with Ole Miss, Townsend turned in a 3.94 ERA with 88 strikeouts against 22 walks in 64 innings (14 starts). The Cubs were drawn to his elite ability to spin the baseball. Beyond a fastball that can sit around 94-97 mph, Townsend features a slider, cutter and curve, while mixing in a changeup.
Asked about his smaller stature -- Townsend is listed as 6-foot-1 -- he brought up that he was wearing No. 65 on his new Cubs jersey.
“A lot of people are, like, ‘Why are you wearing 65?’” he said. “A lot of people said, 'Man, you’re just a six-foot right-hander.’ When I’m on the mound, I think I'm 6-foot-5. I really think I'm better than you in every way. And I don't care how small I am. Look at Sonny Gray, he’s 5-10 and he's played a long time.”
Once in Arizona with the Cubs, Townsend wanted to tackle an arm-slot issue that came up in his final college season. He felt his arm angle drifting higher (around 60-62 degrees) and he approached the Cubs’ pitching group about trying to lower it to around 55-56 degrees. They had already discussed that possibility internally, so the sides agreed it was worth tackling in the weeks following the Draft.
Townsend said he has already seen a noticeable velocity jump in bullpen sessions and improvement on the movement of his breaking pitches.
“It will do a lot,” he said. “My natural slot is lower than what I was throwing in college. I just didn’t have the complete data set of, like, ‘Hey, this is what I’m doing wrong.’ And then now, when I go out there [to Arizona], we went through all the data and I was like, ‘Wow, I’m leaving 5 mph off.’
“And I could throw harder for a longer time and throw more innings and have a better breaking ball. It’s cool to see that this is actually going to make me better.”
That process will continue after this trip to Chicago, which is where Townsend’s parents got engaged. That is just another small layer to make the visit to Wrigley Field even more surreal for him and his family.
“I love this place. My parents love Chicago,” Townsend said. “My parents love this city so much. I think my mom’s cried like 10 times.”