Top pitching project shades former team to add fuel to weird Dodgers-Cubs rivalry fire

The funniest thing about this budding “Dodgers-Cubs rivalry” is that it’s being manufactured almost entirely by quotes — not by baseball.

First it was Pete Crow-Armstrong poking the bear in a Chicago Magazine profile, tossing out the line about Cubs fans actually caring while Dodgers fans “go to the game…to take pictures and whatever.” It was a classic spring-training sideshow: a young star leaning into the tribal stuff because it plays, it travels, and everyone’s bored in February.

Now it’s Jackson Ferris adding another log to the same fire — and he didn’t even have to try that hard.

Dodgers-Cubs tension is real on social media, not on the field

Ferris, the left-handed pitching prospect the Dodgers got from Chicago in the Michael Busch/Yency Almonte deal, basically described his move to Los Angeles as an organizational upgrade. He called the Dodgers “a breath of fresh air,” then went a step further: said it was “crazy” to see how different the Cubs are from the Dodgers and that L.A. is “just as good, if not better, at everything” in both the minors and the big leagues. 

Is it a devastating diss? Not really. Ferris actually went out of his way to say the Cubs have plenty of good people and good ideas. But in 2026 baseball discourse, nobody has patience for that kind of balance. The second a player praises the Dodgers for being more detail-oriented and describes his early pro experience in Chicago as a little more hands-off, it gets flattened into the same headline-ready takeaway: the Cubs didn’t maximize him, and the Dodgers will.

The Ferris comments don’t land as random bitterness — they land as branding. The Dodgers have spent so much money that everyone expects them to be unfair. What gets overlooked (and what drives rival fanbases nuts) is that they’re also a factory: they acquire talent, refine it, and suddenly the “project” looks like a ready-made big leaguer.

Ferris is literally the case study. He was the Dodgers' minor league Pitcher of the Year in 2024 after posting a 3.20 ERA across 27 starts between High-A and Double-A, then followed with a 3.86 ERA over 126 innings at Double-A in 2025.

This spring, he’s allowed no runs with just four baserunners across his first two Cactus League starts, showing a five-pitch mix that includes both a four-seam and two-seam fastball, a “bullet slider,” a changeup, and a 12-to-6 curveball.  Dave Roberts called him “really talented,” then gave the actual checklist: get ahead, put hitters away with secondaries, be efficient. 

So if you’re trying to make Dodgers-Cubs a thing, sure — Ferris just handed you a quote. But the reality is simpler (and more annoying for everyone else). This isn’t a rivalry. It’s two separate truths colliding online.

The Cubs have a star who enjoys chirping. The Dodgers have a development machine that turns prospects into problems. Ferris doesn’t need to hate Chicago for that to sting. He just has to keep pitching like this, and the internet will do the rest.