Matt Mervis has worn the scarlet letters of UDFA ever since his name wasn’t called during the truncated 2020 draft, and not even a stellar 2022 performance has completely outweighed that fact. His age (25 in April) and position (1B/DH) work pretty heavily against him as well. Case in point, Mervis was named the Cubs’ Minor League Player of the year for ’22 yet MLB Pipeline ranks him 21st among Cubs prospects.
However, that same outlet ranked Mervis as the fourth-best first base prospect in the game after his breakout last year.