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

All Quiet on the Cubs Front

These few weeks before spring training starts is about as dull as it gets around these parts. We're all still waiting on Cespedes, but with Jedstein and their cone of silence, it's not like we can expect many leaks. There's also the case of the musical 40-man roster chairs with the Cubs having to drop someone once they add Gerardo Concepcion. Vegas money should be on Andy Sonnastine with Marcus Mateo and his lack of options a strong second. And the issue of compensation for both Theo and Jed still looms with no foreseeable end in sight.

I've got my annual prospect list-mania post coming up for Monday which always includes my delusional top 16 which should be good for laugh. It doesn't appear our pal Arizona Phil put up a list this year unfortunately, so you'll have to get your prospect fix from the national guys.

Speaking of Arizona, I'm sure most of you know about "Boys of Spring", the site run by the spring training P.A. announcer Tim Sheridan. While we anxiously await Arizona Phil's wonderfully detailed posts from camp, that can hold you over with pretty pictures. From what I can encode from his posts so far, the following have showed up at Arizona: Justin Bour, Zeke DeVoss, Dustin Geiger, Josh Vitters, Jim Adduci, Matt Cerda, Tony Campana, Dave Sappelt, Jeff Samardzija, David DeJesus, Darwin Barney, Matt Garza, Dale Sveum and Dave McKay. I'm sure there are others, but those seem to be the ones mentioned. He did a little paraphrasing from a pep talk Sveum was giving the kids earlier last week.

  • There will be no excuses for not doing something the right way.
  • Theo Epstein is one of the smartest people he's ever been around, and that Theo will not accept mediocrity, not from himself, not from anyone.
  • Making excuses is caused by your own insecurities and lack of preparation.
  • So many games are won by one run and the Cubs will prepare and do all the little things the right way in order to be the team that wins those close games.
  • He also told the guys they are being given the greatest opportunity in all of sports, to be the players who win it all after 103 years.

The words sound nice, let's see if he backs it up with some Soriano benching when he glides into 2nd base after a drive to right center that he gawked at.

Back to Cespedes, George Ofman whom rivals Phil Rogers in bad scoops, did tweet that someone has made a bigger offer for the Cuban outfielder than the Marlins and we obviously know the Cubs interest. Time will tell...

I leave you with these words from the Cubs Ivy League leader.

"I don't agree with the word 'rebuilding' ever," he said. "Because, for one thing, it denotes that you're building something that already existed, but that's not how baseball works. You're constantly growing and moving onto the next iteration of the club, so I think building is the appropriate [word] -- sure we're building in Chicago, but we went through some building phases here. The art of it is trying to do it in a way where nobody notices. When you're winning 95 games a year and getting into the playoffs, then people don't notice that we've integrated a lot of this talent and we've made a lot of short-term sacrifices for long-term stability. I think there were a lot of times when we were able to pull that off here [in Boston], there were a lot of times that we failed as well."

Until Monday...

Comments

Andy Sisco signed with Dodgers, Mitch Atkins with Nationals. and the Rich Harden shoulder surgery news...

Hoyer on... Marmol:"I don't think what happened last year is acceptable," Hoyer said Thursday on "The Carmen, Jurko & Harry Show" on ESPN 1000. "I think there's nothing more demoralizing to a baseball team than to win for 2:45 and then lose in the last 10. I think that happened a lot last year. "If you look back, this guy has had some dominant years. ... Everyone said the slider wasn't quite the same last. Hopefully there are some mechanical things we can do to get that back. Blowing 10 saves isn't acceptable, but we're not wiling to say he can't get back to where he was before." Soriano (expecting him to be with team to start the year): The power was there last year, the RBIs were there. Obviously it really comes down to defense and we're hoping with some better conditioning and some better health, that he can be a little better out there. Garza: "He's a great pitcher and a guy we're going to talk to him about being part of our future, for sure. We need more guys like Matt, not less, and if we can work something out we'll certainly have those discussions." http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/7801/hoyer-marmols-2011-… http://espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/story/_/id/7560020/chicago-cubs-general-…

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

I listened to the interview live locally in the car. It was nice to hear one of the new suits. What Hoy also stated about Sori was that not only was it unlikely that he would NOT be with the team - he was "working hard" during the off-season to try to get on base more apparently. How does one do that at his age exactly? As it stands, we all know that there ain't a lot of run producers on the current roster. So if he has another .276 obp year, its gonna be interesting to find out if the team can achieve 70 wins. To their credit, the hosts on WMVP (one a lifetime season tix holder) asked some decent questions I think, if you check ROB G's links.

[ ]

In reply to by John Beasley

Steven Maxwell was the Cubs 37th round selection in the 2011 Rule 4 Draft (First-Year Player Draft). and because he was a college senior with no eligibility left, he remained on the Cubs Negotiation List past the 8/15 deadline, and would have remained on the list through May 27, 2012 (one week prior to the 2012 Rule 4 Draft) if he had not signed. In true Bluto Animal House fashion, Maxwell actually spent six years at TCU, getting an academic redshirt in his freshman season (2006) and a medical redshirt in 2008 when he underwent TJS. (He is now 24 years old). He had an outstanding year in 2010 while a member of the Horned Frogs College World Series squad, and was named Mountain West Conference Pitcher of the Year and a 2nd team All-American. He was selected by the Minnesota Twins in the 12th round of the 2010 Rule 4 Draft but did not sign. He opted to return to school and pitched for the Frogs again this past season (2011), but struggled off & on with a sore arm, causing his draft value to plummet. So I suspect he failed his physical and had his contract voided.

Would you guys consider using coke, pot, booze etc....would you consider those PED's? Saw this discussion on boo-yah.com....just can't believe that these are considered PED's.

[ ]

In reply to by Dusty Baylor

I am always amazed at those guys that can show up and play when they're either still drunk or hungover. Those soft tossers and splitfinger guys always throw better when they're hungover because they aren't overthrowing. Aside from that, I cannot understand how anybody, especially a hitter, can play when he's drunk. Does not make sense to me.

Jon Heyman obviously paying attention to Theo this offseason- JonHeymanCBS #brewers, #cubs, #astros are all good fits for edgar renteria, who has something left and will play in 2012

sam fuld story on mlb network about his diabetes (t1 since age 10). he said one of the first things he did when he was called up to the cubs was talk to santo. santo was ecstatic and excited about another player with t1 diabetes playing the majors.

tag in twitter is good for a laugh https://twitter.com/search/%23ThinnestSportsBooks My contributions: The Definitive Guide to Alfonso Soriano's Hustle Plays #ThinnestSportsBooks Protecting the Quarterback by Mike Martz #ThinnestSportsBooks The Importance of OBP by Jim Hendry #ThinnestSportsBooks Protecting Young Pitchers by Dusty Baker #ThinnestSportsBooks too easy....

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

baker catches a lot of hell for aggregating pitchers and treating them like they're all the same. the surgery toll doesn't add up because the list is both short and debated who actually is his "fault." plus it'd be neat if they'd take russ ortiz (who b.cox worked even harder) and livan hernandez out of these discussions...or at least discounted them...because they could throw 130 pitches in a game if it came down to it and do it again 5 days later. too many articles about who he's ruined that don't even name names...except everyone's favorite fallback OMFG PRIOR 03. late september 03 with prior was the worst mistake dustbag ever made pertaining to pitching management if not for anything else than he became a scapegoat (or an evil dunce).

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

the assumption of truth...and Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Jason Schmidt, Russ Ortiz, Aaron Harang, Edinson Volquez (few more in there I believe). no shit it's hyperbolic, it' s humor, but there's plenty of smoke around Baker in this fire. There's plenty of reasons to make the joke because there's plenty of times that pitchers got hurt under Baker. Is he unfairly maligned for it? A bit.... Does he deserve some criticism and an occasional jab? Yup...

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

check out what f.alou did with schmidt. ...and russ ortiz has gone way out of his way to deflect away from dusty...and bobby cox has some explaining to do if dusty is somehow part of the problem. ortiz, zambrano, and l.hernandez were horses. people aggregate his average pitches per year on a staff, it comes out 5-ish more than league average, and people flip. criticism, yah, jab, yah...villainous hate and posterboy of pitcher abuse (thanks BBProspectus and the church of travis hafner), nah. there's defiantly smoke and perhaps fire, but some people are going around claiming arson.

I can't imagine why anyone would try to sign Renteria. He played in one of the best hitter's parks in the majors last year and had an ops under 700. Barney is a better player at an extremely low cost.

Recent comments

  • crunch (view)

    yeah, for me this isn't about who's better at 3rd.  it's madrigal, period.  for me it's about who's not hitting in the lineup because madrigal is in the lineup.

    occasional play at 3rd for madrigal, okay.  going with the steele/ground-ball matchup...meh, but okay, whatever.

    seeing madrigal get significant starting time...no thanks.

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    Yeah I am very disappointed Madrigal is starting. He has no business as a starter. He is AAA insurance, a back up at best. Sure his defense looks fine because he plays far enough in that his noodle arm isn’t totally exposed. It comes at the cost of 3B range.

    He’s garbage, and a team serious about winning would NOT have him starting opening day.

  • 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.