Cubs MLB Roster

Cubs Organizational Depth Chart
40-Man Roster Info

40 players are on the MLB RESERVE LIST (roster is full) 

28 players on MLB RESERVE LIST are ACTIVE, and twelve players are on OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT to minors. 

Last updated 3-26-2024
 
* bats or throws left
# bats both

PITCHERS: 15
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Jose Cuas
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Caleb Kilian
Mark Leiter Jr
* Luke Little
Julian Merryweather
Hector Neris 
* Drew Smyly
* Justin Steele
Jameson Taillon
* Jordan Wicks

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

INFIELDERS: 7
* Michael Busch 
Nico Hoerner
Nick Madrigal
* Miles Mastrobuoni
Christopher Morel
Dansby Swanson
Patrick Wisdom

OUTFIELDERS: 4
* Cody Bellinger 
Alexander Canario
# Ian Happ
Seiya Suzuki
* Mike Tauchman 

OPTIONED: 12 
Kevin Alcantara, OF 
Michael Arias, P 
Ben Brown, P 
Alexander Canario, OF 
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF 
Brennen Davis, OF 
Porter Hodge, P 
* Matt Mervis, 1B 
Daniel Palencia, P 
Keegan Thompson, P 
Luis Vazquez, INF 
Hayden Wesneski, P 

 



 

Minor League Rosters
Rule 5 Draft 
Minor League Free-Agents

Sale of Cubs May Be Completed Before End of Civilization

Some more news has trickled out on the impending sale of the Cubs and Sam Zell is hinting that the Ricketts may not be the new owner afterall (emphasis added).

"These are very difficult times. These are difficult times to arrange financing," Zell said in an interview, adding that if the Ricketts deal falls through, he is confident the media company--which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December--will find another buyer for the ballclub.

"We’ve made it very public that the Cubs don’t fit into the long term picture of the Tribune," he said. "So if the Ricketts deal doesn’t get done, I’m sure there will be other ones."

Sure, a lot of people have $900M or so lying around to spend on the Cubs as evidenced by the three legitimate bids Zell actually received. Of those three bids, Ricketts was supposedly not the highest but offered the most money up front, so if financing is the issue, a deal that would require even more to be financed is probably not going to have much more luck than the Ricketts are having now.

Of course...financing really isn't the issue it appears. According to this story dated May 19th, the Ricketts already secured a little over $850M of that $900M original bid; $403M from the sale of stock in Ameritrade and another $450M secured in bank loans (Clarification: Technically $753M is secured with a $100M coming from a private placement by Barclays which we do not know the status of, although the Ricketts claim they can cover it if it falls through). There was that story of Ricketts looking for 10 or so investors at $25M a pop, including celebrities like John Cusack, Bill Murray and Jim Belushi, but that round of financing was supposedly not critical to get the deal done according to "sources". Crain's Chicago Business also echoes that the financing is already in place and explains the real delay.

Thomas Ricketts, who is leading his family’s bid for Tribune Co.’s Cubs, has lined up financing for the deal, but a dispute over price is delaying the transaction.

The Ricketts family, whose original bid was close to $900 million, now believes the real price should be closer to $850 million, a source said. The sides disagree over the value of the team’s multiyear contract to broadcast games on Tribune’s WGN network.

At issue is about $40 million to $50 million — roughly 6% of the original bid, which also includes Wrigley Field and a 25% stake in regional cable channel Comcast Sports.

So the Ricketts are either short $50M in financing and trying to talk Zell down or they really are unhappy with the broadcast rights. I'm going with option B here. It appears the Tribune made sweetheart deals with WGN radio and television to broadcast the Cubs games at below fair market value for a contract up to 10 years sometime last fall. Ricketts isn't buying any stake of WGN, but is supposedly getting a 25% stake in the Comcast sports channel that already broadcasts about 80 games a year. So naturally, if he owns the cable company he'd like more games to go on there or be sure he's getting paid the appropriate amount in any licensing deal to WGN.

So don't believe the Zell lies, the money is there for Ricketts, Zell just isn't liking the terms.


Hat tip to waxpaperbeercup that has been all over the sale process, also check out Mark Cuban's blog on why he bowed out and wasn't going to pay anything near the $1 billion asking price at this time. End of the world coming Decemeber 21st, 2012...John Cusack (Cub fan) is starring. Coincidence? I think not.

 

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  • crunch (view)

    in other news, it took 3 PA before a.rizzo got his 1st HBP of the season.

  • Eric S (view)

    With two home runs (so far) and 5 rbi today … clearly Nick Martini is the straw that stirs the Reds drink 😳

  • crunch (view)

    madrigal at 3rd...morel at DH.

    making room for madrigal or/and masterboney to get a significant amount of ABs is a misuse of the roster.  if it needed to get taken care of this offseason, they had tons of time to figure that out.

    morel played almost exclusively at 3rd in winter ball and they had him almost exclusively there all spring when he wasn't DH'ing.

    madrigal doing a good job with the glove for a bit over 2 chances per game...is that worth more than what he brings with the bat 4-5 PA a game?  it's 2024 and we got glenn beckert 2.0 manning 3rd base.

    this is a tauchman or cooper DH situation based on bat, alone.  cooper is 3/7 with a double off eovaldi if you want to play the most successful matchup.

    anyway, i hope this is a temporary thing, not business as usual for the rest of the season.  it will be telling if morel is not used at 3rd when an extreme fly ball pitcher like imanaga is on the mound.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    There are two clear "logjams" in the Cubs minor league pipeline at the present time, namely AA outfielders (K. Alcantara, C. Franklin, Roederer, Pagan, Pinango, Beesley, and Nwogu) and Hi-A infielders (J. Rojas, P. Ramirez, Howard, R. Morel, Pertuz, R. Garcia, and Spence, although Morel has been getting a lot of reps in the outfield in addition to infield). So it is possible that you might see a trade involving one of the extra outfielders at AA and/or one of the extra infielders at Hi-A in the next few days. 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    18-year old SS Jefferson Rojas almost made the AA Tennessee Opening Day roster, and he is a legit shortstop, so I would expect him to be an MLB Top 100 prospect by mid-season. 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Among the relievers in the system, I expect RHRP Hunter Bigge at AAA Iowa and RHRP Ty Johnson at South Bend to have breakout seasons on 2024, and among the starters I see LHP Drew Gray and RHP Will Sanders at South Bend and RHP Naz Mule at ACL Cubs as the guys who will make the biggest splash. Also, Jaxon Wiggins is throwing bullpen sides, so once he is ready for game action he could be making an impact at Myrtle Beach by June.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    I expect OF Christian Franklin to have a breakout season at AA Tennessee in 2024. In another organization that doesn't have PCA, Caissie, K. Alcantara, and Canario in their system, C. Franklin would be a Top 10 prospect. 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    The Reds trading Joe Boyle for Sam Moll at last year's MLB Trade Deadline was like the Phillies trading Ben Brown to the Cubs for David Robertson at the MLB TD in 2022. 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Javier Assad started the Lo-A game (Myrtle Beach versus Stockton) on the Cubs backfields on Wednesday as his final Spring Training tune-up. He was supposed to throw five innings / 75 pitches. However, I was at the minor league road games at Fitch so I didn't see Assad pitch. 

  • crunch (view)

    cards put j.young on waivers.

    they really tried to make it happen this spring, but he put up a crazy bad slash of .081/.244/.108 in 45PA.