Today the Chicago Cubs made their Rule 5 Draft protection decisions, adding Owen Caissie and Ben Cowles to the 40-man roster. To open up spots, the Cubs designated Adbert Alzolay and Brennen Davis for assignment. The Cubs will have seven days to trade, waive, or release (non-tender, in this case) each of Alzolay and Davis.

We discussed Alzolay earlier, and here’s hoping the Cubs can retain him on a minor league deal. The story is similar for Davis, a former top prospect whose trajectory was derailed by multiple injuries (some flukey HBP stuff, a congenital malformation addressed by lower-back surgery, another core surgery), and who flashed some of that same upside potential earlier this year before yet another injury (back fracture) shut him down. He came back from THAT one, only to see his season end late in the year on a freak play at second base.

It’s not clear what his future holds, but Davis only just turned 25. If he’s healthy and wants to keep going, he’s going to find plenty of suitors that want to give him a look on a minor league deal. You’d love for that to be the Cubs, but it’s hard to say that is HIS best path, given their positional crowding.

Best of luck to him in whatever happens. Neither of Alzolay nor Davis was going to stay on the 40-man roster all offseason, and they can still be re-signed, so the Cubs have not yet lost anyone they didn’t otherwise expect to head down this road. It’s still sad for these guys, though.

We’ve followed and enjoyed their careers for a very long time. Caissie, 22, played the full year at Triple-A Iowa, hitting . 278/.

375/. 472/121 wRC+, with some of the best quality of contact data in the organization. He needs to work on optimizing his power on batted balls in the air a little bit, but the offensive ceiling is massive.

Caissie plays good defense in the corner outfield spots, and, now that he’s on the 40-man roster, could see up-and-down time in 2025, with a chance to establish himself as a regular on the big league team if a need arises or if the bat just won’t be denied. Cowles, 24, was a college teammate of Matt Shaw’s, and can play well enough defensively all over to project as a possible future utility man in the big leagues. He was starting to look like a breakout bat last year for the Yankees at Double-A, but a pitch broke his wrist and then he was traded to the Cubs in the Mark Leiter Jr.

deal. He did make it back at the very end of the season and then played in the AFL, so he’s healthy now. I expect he will be an up-down utility option if the Cubs have the need, though they may prefer that he spends most of his year at Triple-A, hopefully continuing to improve with the bat.

An aside on adding Cowles: it probably puts a little more pressure on Miles Mastrobuoni’s and Nick Madrigal’s spots on the 40-man (and, to a lesser extent, Luis Vazquez). They could be non-tendered at the upcoming tender deadline on Friday. Among the Rule 5 eligible unprotected prospects, the Cubs could PLAUSIBLY lose an outfielder like Christian Franklin or an upside arm like Erian Rodriguez.

It seems unlikely, given that players selected in the Rule 5 Draft have to go straight onto the 26-man roster on Opening Day and last the entire season there (otherwise, they have to be offered back to their original organization). You never know. The Rule 5 Draft is December 11.

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