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

MoneyCare Starring Billy Beane

It looks like Michael Lewis may have his next besteller, a team of doctors take on the system by using a statistical approach to health care.

So what the hell am I talking about?

It seems Oakland A's GM Billy Beane is bored with baseball and Eric Chavez's aching back and decided to tackle the health care system. In this NY Times Op-Ed piece along with former presidential candiate John Kerry and former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, they call for a plan to rely more on medical evidence rather than guts, instincts and experience to chart the medical course for a patient.

It is no surprise then that the United States spends more than twice as much per capita on health care compared to almost every other country in the world — and with worse health quality than most industrialized nations. Health premiums for a family of four have nearly doubled since 2001. Starbucks pays more for health care than it does for coffee. Nearly 100,000 Americans are killed every year by preventable medical errors. We can do better if doctors have better access to concise, evidence-based medical information.

I'm not really sure how anyone could disagree, except perhaps Dusty Baker. It would seem with the tools at hand (computers and the Internet), that a structured system where diagnoses and their prescriped treatments charted against their effectiveness would be a valuable tool for any doctor that is still coherent enough to power up a computer.

We can then have websites and forums like medicalprospectus.com, themedicaltimes.com, etc where a bunch of armchair doctors could argue from the safety of their own internet connection about the appropriate treatment for a patient.

"Hey, Dr. Jones,  what were you thinking prescriping strengthening exercises when a debridement is effective 50.9% of the time, compared to 49.8% for exercises. You're a loser. Go die."

(Dr. Hecht is going to nail me on that one...I'm sure)

It is an interesting article and certainly something, along with getting all medical records online, that should be pursued immediately in this country.

In the meantime, I have a few domain names to register. 

Comments

That sounds very scary to me. VERY Nazi-like. You will wind up with decisions to not treat people and let them die just because the numbers are bad. Me no likey.

[ ]

In reply to by The Joe

About Al's post at BCB:

Based upon the comments from Lou Piniella and Jim Hendry following the Cubs organizational meetings this past week here in Mesa, the Cubs will try and add an "athletic" lefty bat or two to the lineup if they can. 

The Cubs right-handed heavy middle of the order did struggle against the D'backs and Dodgers right-handed starters and right-handed bullpen in the past two NLDS, so the 2009 Master Plan may indeed involve trying to exchange one of the Big Five right-handed bats (Soriano, Lee, Ramirez, Soto, and DeRosa) for a lefty bat or two.

Soriano is untradeable, and I can't see the Cubs trading Ramirez or Soto. DeRosa has tremendous value as a multi-positional guy with power, which leaves D-Lee as the most-likely candidate to get moved. 

D-Lee does have a "no trade," but the one place he would probably be willing to go is San Francisco, so that he could be closer to his family in Sacramento, especially his daughter. And I could see the Giants having interest in Lee, to give themselves another power bat in the middle of the order. But I cannot see the Giants trading Matt Cain to get him. No way.

Rather, if the Giants were to acquire Lee and the $26M that remains on his contract ($13M per year 2009-10), they would probably want the Cubs to either pay some of Lee's salary in 2009-10, or else take back players who are (combined) making what Lee makes, at least in 2009. If it's the latter, the most-obvious candidates for the Cubs to take back from SF to offset Lee's 2009 salary would be OF Randy Winn (who will make $8.25M in 2009) and LHP Noah Lowry (who makes $4.5M in 2009 with a $6.25M club option for 2010).

Winn is 35 years old, but he had one of his best MLB seasons in 2008 (306/363/426 overall, with a 313/371/410 split vs RHP, and 25 SB with only two CS). He is a switch-hitter who can play all three OF spots (although RF is his best position) and can hit anywhere 1-2-3, depending on the needs of the team. 

Lowry missed the 2008 season after undergoing forearm/elbow surgery, so he would be a crap shoot in 2009. But that description fits the profile of Rich Hill, too, with the big difference being Hill is out of minor league options, while Lowry gives his team some flexibility because he has two minor league options left.  

So I could see the Cubs trading D-Lee and R. Hill to SF for Winn and Lowry, and then signing or trading for a veteran left-handed hitting 1st baseman with power. Mark Teixeira would be ideal, but if they can't sign him, Aubrey Huff (48 doubles and 32 HR in 2008) would be one likely fall-back option.  

As for Kosuke Fukudome, the Cubs probably have had some internal discussions about how to jettison him if it becomes necesssary. Working out some kind of de facto "trade" with the Yomiuri Giants would probably be their best bet (Fukudome almost signed with the Yomiuri Giants a year ago before he decided to sign with the Cubs), but I doubt that it will happen this off-season, although I guess it could (especially if the Cubs acquire a RF). And if it does happen, the Cubs would almost certainly have to pay a substantial portion of Fukudome's remaining salary. 

[ ]

In reply to by The Joe

"I love your quoting methodology. That's MLA, right?" MLA? Why not APA? Shut up. Just shut up. (Sick & tired of picayune citation style wars. Damn geeks.)

This topic is way more complex than a short answer can give, but one of the problems with "concise" evidence based medicine and outcome based "pay for performance" is how flawed is the data collection? It is in an early stage but those driving this probably they won't get it right. It's hard enough to have a good scientific study that truly proves one treatment over another. Particularly when the motivation of the study is to limit cost. When a truly valid study is done, doctors usually listen. Medication rxs change based on such studies, even surgery techniques change over time although technology improvements are frequently the drivers of surgical procedure improvements. There are just many variables which must be controlled to make things comparable. When the government starts/stops paying based on flawed information, it is mostly to avoid expenses but it usually just shifts payments to other pockets. We can argue over baseball stats, argue over the intangible value of scrappiness, but even sabermetrics has a tough time measuring many things, ie. catcher defensive skills (CERA anyone?) and measuring medical outcomes is often much more subjective and the useful measurable stats are open for more debate than WARP, VORP or PECOTA. My bias is the insurance management layers suck out absurd amounts of money from the system. Might be better if the insurance companies were mutualized so their insured got the profits returned to them. The 100K deaths from medical errors stats need closer scrutiny including changing the malpractice climate but I doubt that those events would be significantly changed by evidence based algorithms. I suspect those events are more related to flat out mistakes/errors that should have been picked up on earlier, but not due to treatment off the mainstream path. For examples: That would be like telling ARam, Theriot, DeRosa and DLee that they shouldn't boot grounders in the same NLDS playoff game. Bad outcome, lets not pay for that kind of performance. ...or telling Dempster not to walk 7 batters in 5 innings work in game one of the NLDS. Bad outcome, lets not pay for that kind of performance. ...or telling Soriano his OBP isn't high enough and then getting him to not swing at pitches bouncing in the dirt when there are two outs in the last game of the NLDS. Bad outcome and Moneyball hasn't fixed Soriano, never will.

[ ]

In reply to by Cubster

i have no idea how the economic-social aspect of "quality of care vs. what you can afford" comes into this book/study/etc. while most all doctors spent a lot of time and money to learn their craft not all of them are skilled equally. to put it another way...you can be damn sure you got a better chance in a courtroom with your own hired lawyer who's good at a specific series of defense vs. a court appointed lawyer that happily works most of his cases through court appointment work. there's a reason those high-end hired guns cost so f'n much and naturally exclude a chunk of the population even if both guys are competent at what they do. and beyond all that...and maybe more important...how does aftercare factor into it? that can be just as important as the actual procedure to "fix" the problem.

[ ]

In reply to by Cubster

I think the key here, as I cited earlier, is to offer it as a tool for doctors, not replace them or force their hand.

Working closely with doctors, the federal government and the private sector should create a new institute for evidence-based medicine. This institute would conduct new studies and systematically review the existing medical literature to help inform our nation’s over-stretched medical providers. The government should also increase Medicare reimbursements and some liability protections for doctors who follow the recommended clinical best practices.

the last sentence is probably taking it a little too far, the first two though seem to be a tool that could be extremely valuable.

[ ]

In reply to by Cubster

I do have a certain degree of knowledge on the subject of foreign health systems. I've been to doctors in seven countries (that I remember). I don't know about cost, but without a doubt, the best diagnosis I recieve is from US Doctors. In one case I reported the same symptoms to doctors in three countries, and the doctors perscribed the following: Tea Anti-biotic Rest The US doctor was the one who correctly diagnosed the illness, during about a 60 second conversation, which she then confirmed with a blood test. There's myriad reasons that healthcare costs a lot in the US, and there are reasons that Americans aren't as rugged as other countries' citizens. If we weren't the most obese country in the world, a lot of these 'problems' would solve themselves.

Yeah, when you're crunching numbers on medicine you're dealing with such a wide range of doctors' abilities, know-how, knowledge of best current treatments etc. that what gets spit out at the end could be fairly problematic. I know my Dad was told by a suburban doctor that he had six weeks to live. Two days later, after visiting a doctor at Loyola, he was in an operating room. That was over 25 years ago and he's alive today. Half the doctors out there finished in the bottom half of their class.

[ ]

In reply to by Chad

That's true. But they aren't all from the bottom of their classes. I know two docs that aren't currently practicing and both finished near the top of their classes. I should have said - of those receiving degrees in medicine, half finished in the bottom half of their classes. Short of a census of every doctor in the country, whether more from the top or bottom go on to other things is anyone's guess. My main point is - there's a lot of dumb asses practicing medicine out there.

I don't see anything wrong with it per se. It's just another tool you can use, meaning that you can choose NOT to use it. So it's better to have it available than not. Most baseball scouts and the establishment were so against using stats and new metrics too for player evaluation, but it's here to stay whether they want to use it or not.

[ ]

In reply to by 10man

teams have been paying big money for custom stat evaluation long before the moneyball era. the idea that teams and scouts have no use for them or it's some new-fangled threat to their jobs as they know it is overblown. it's importance in player evaluation has gotten larger and you now see stat guys on-staff rather than buying/contracting info out from a separate company. ...and plenty can be wrong with a stat in the wrong argument, imo.

Let me say right off the bat, I'm in no way affiliated with the website I'm about to mention, but if you like sports and making money do yourself a favor and check out OneSeason.com. It's a stock market (using real money) that trades virtual shares of pro athletes. There's one Cub available right now (ticker symbol: BIGZ), and he gained 179% today. If you're worried about it's legitimacy, don't take my word for it... WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122471163578159995.html?mod=googlenews_… Time: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1853326,00.html At least for the time being, every player listed just continues to go up. As more news outlets pick this up, more people are flooding the "market" with money. This may not be a good long term investment, but for right now it's pretty nice.

Paul Kinzer, the agent for Aram, Furcal, K-rod, Soto, and likely Marmol soon (according to Levine) was on Talking Baseball with Levine. Some intresting nuggets from it: * Aram has won the NL Version of the Hank Aaron Award given to the best hitter in the league. The voters for it are the brodcasters for all the teams on both media formats (70% of the vote) and the fans (30%) according to Wikipedia. He will get it tommorrow before Game 4. * He insisted that a deal for Furcal to the Cubs was really close 3 years ago, but the reason for no deal had more with contract language than money. * He thinks the market for him will be 7 to 10 teams. * He is still intrested in the Cubs. Levine said both Chicago will be looking at a MI who can lead-off) * Kinser thinks he can get 15 mil a year for Krod.

I LOVE THE TRACKBACK.COM FEATURE. IF YOU NEED A LOWERMORTGAGE.COM OR A BIGGERDICK.COM PLEASE CONTINUE THE FINE JOURNALISM. WE HERE AT PIMPMYSITE.COM HAVE BEEN READERS FOR $UNKNOWN_VARIABLE YEARS!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-26-rogers-whispe… According to Baseball America, the Cubs slipped from ninth to 15th in total budget for the amateur draft, spending about $600,000 less in 2008 than '07. The White Sox increased their spending but can't exactly brag about ranking 23rd. The top five spenders were the Royals, Red Sox, Rays, Pirates and Giants. … The Cubs are on the list of teams for which Jake Peavy will waive his no-trade clause. This doesn't look like a fit, but don't be surprised if Jim Hendry tries to put together a package that would include a swap of first basemen, Derrek Lee and Adrian Gonzalez, who is supposedly untouchable. Hendry will then try and trade Aramis for Arod, Theriot for Hanley Ramirez and DeRosa for Chase Utley.

[ ]

In reply to by John Beasley

Phil Rogers laptop needs one of those breathalizer starters that DUI guys have on their cars. His article today was one of the most stupid ones he has ever written. Manny to White Sox? Manny to Cubs? after saying a NL team would be a bad fit. What a dumb fuck.

This statistical thing is a fairly standard item among health care geeks; it's covered in Crisis of Abundance by Arnold Kling, which goes into the idea in a lot of detail. It makes sense for a lot of the reasons Moneyball tools make sense in baseball, with one big difference: nobody sues Billy Beane because his manager didn't call for a bunt, and the guy on first base happens to get stranded at third - even though it was statistically the right call.

Trans here. For those who might recall that I teach at a U somewhere in AR, and who are now reading early reports of a school shooting on a campus in AR, rest assured that I'm fine. Still busy as all fuck, but lurking around here, and very much not shot to death on campus tonight. (I only mention because I'm already getting inquiries. Good to know that there are people curious about whether or not I'm getting shot....) Be good to each other, T

Did anyone catch the ESPN 1000 radio broadcast of WS game #3 last night (Saturday night)? During the rain delay they played a tape of the 2003 NLCS game #6, otherwise known as the Bartman game. I was driving to a Halloween party and had to get out of the car in the 8th inning with a 2-2 count on Castillo. While I half didn't mind shutting off the radio at that point, it was interesting hearing the radio commentary about the Cubs and Prior at the time when they were still ahead 3-0 in the game and 3-2 in the series, especially knowing what we know now about both of them.

Recent comments

  • 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.

  • Childersb3 (view)

    Seconded!!!

  • crunch (view)

    another awesome spring of pitching reports.  thanks a lot, appreciated.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Here are the Cubs pitchers reports from Tuesday afternoon's Cardinals - Cubs game art Sloan Park in Mesa:

    SHOTA IMANAGA
    FB: 90-92 
    CUT: 87-89 
    SL: 82-83 
    SPLIT: 81-84
    CV: 73-74 
    COMMENT: Worked three innings plus two batters in the fourth... allowed four runs (three earned) on eight hits (six singles and two doubles) walked one, and struck out six (four swinging), with a 1/2 GO/AO... he threw 73 pitches (52 strikes - 10 swing & miss - 19 foul balls)... surrendered one run in the top of the 1st on a one-out double off Cody Bellinger's glove in deep straight-away CF followed one out later by two consecutive two-out bloop singles, allowed two runs (one earned) in the 2nd after retiring the first two hitters (first batter had a nine-pitch AB with four consecutive two-strike foul balls before being retired 3 -U) on a two-out infield single (weak throw on the run by Nico Hoerner), a hard-contact line drive RBI double down the RF line, and an E-1 (missed catch) by Imanaga on what should been an inning-ending 3-1 GO, gave up another run in the 3rd on a two-out walk on a 3-2 pitch and an RBI double to LF, and two consecutive singles leading off the top of the 4th before being relieved (runners were ultimately left stranded)... threw 18 pitches in the 1st inning (14 strikes - two swing & miss, one on FB and the other on a SL - four foul balls), 24 pitches in the 2nd inning (17 strikes - three swing & miss, one on FB, two SPLIT - six foul balls), 19 pitches in the 3rd inning (13 strikes - seven swing & miss, three on SL, two on SPLIT, one on FB - three foul balls), and 12 pitches without retiring a batter in the top of the 4th (8 strikes - no swing & miss - four foul balls)... Imanaga throws a lot of pitches per inning, but it's not because he doesn't throw strikes...  if anything, he throws too many strikes (he threw 70% strikes on Tuesday)... while he gets a ton of swing & miss (and strikeouts), he also induces a lot of foul balls because he doesn't try to make hitters chase his pitches by throwing them out of the strike zone... rather, he uses his very diverse pitch mix to get swing & miss (and lots of foul balls as well)... he also is a fly ball pitcher who will give up more than his share of HR during the course of the season...   
     
    JOE NAHAS
    FB: 90-92 
    SL: 83-85 
    CV: 80-81 
    COMMENT: Was called up from the Hi-A South Bend group at Minor League Camp for the day... relieved Imanaga with runners at first and second and no outs in the top of the 4th, and after an E-2 catcher's interference committed by Miguel Amaya loaded he bases, Nahas struck out the side (one swinging & two looking)... threw 16 pitches (11 strikes - two swinging)...   

    YENCY ALMONTE
    FB: 89-92 
    CH: 86 
    SL: 79 
    COMMENT: Threw an eight-pitch 5th (five strikes - no swing & miss), with a 5-3 GO for the first out and an inning-ending 4-6-3 DP after a one-out single... command was a bit off but he worked through it...   

    FRANKIE SCALZO JR
    FB: 94-95
    CH: 88 
    SL: 83
    COMMENT: Was called up from the AA Tennessee group at Minor League Camp for the day and worked the 6th inning... got the first outs easily (a P-5 and a 4-3 GO) on just three pitches, before allowing three consecutive two-out hard-contact hits (a double and two singles), with the third hit on pitch # 9 resulting in a runner being thrown out at the plate by RF Christian Franklin for the third out of the inning... 

    MICHAEL ARIAS
    FB: 94-96
    CH: 87-89
    SL: 82-83
    COMMENT: Was called up from the AA Tennessee group at Minor League Camp for the day and allowed a hard-contact double on the third pitch of the 7th inning (a 96 MPH FB), and the runner came around to score on a 4-3 GO and a WP... gave up two other loud contact outs (an L-7 and an F-9)... threw 18 pitches (only 10 strikes - only one swing & miss)... stuff is electric but still very raw and he continues to have difficulty commanding it, and while he has the repertoire of a SP, he throws too many pitches-per-inning to be a SP and not enough strikes to be a closer... he is most definitely still a work-in-progress...   

    ZAC LEIGH: 
    FB: 93-94 
    CH: 89 
    SL: 81-83 
    CV: 78
    COMMENT: Was called up from the AA Tennessee group at Minor League Camp for the day and tossed a 1-2-3 8th (4-3 GO, K-swinging on a sweeper, K-looking on another sweeper)... threw 14 pitches (11 strikes - one swing & miss - eight foul balls)... kept pumping pitches into the strike zone but had difficulty putting hitters away (ergo a ton of foul balls)... FB velo is nowhere near the 96-98 MPH it was a couple of years ago when he was a Top 30 prospect, but his secondaries are better...   

    JOSE ROMERO:  
    FB: 93-95
    SL: 82-84
    COMMENT: Was called up from the Hi-A South Bend group at Minor League Camp for the day and worked the 9th (14 pitches - only six strikes- no swing & miss) and allowed a solo HR after two near-HR fly outs to the warning track, before getting a 3-1 GO to end the inning... it was like batting practice when he wasn't throwing pitches out of the strike zone...

  • crunch (view)

    pablo sandoval played 3rd and got a couple ABs (strikeout, single!) in the OAK@SF "exhibition"

    mlb officially authenticated the ball of the single he hit.  nice.

    he's in surprisingly good shape considering his poor body condition in his last playing seasons.  he's not lean, but he looks healthier.  good for him.