Cubs MLB Roster

Cubs Organizational Depth Chart
40-Man Roster Info

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

42 players are at MLB Spring Training 

31 players on MLB RESERVE LIST are ACTIVE at MLB Spring Training, and nine players are on OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT to minors. 
11 players are MLB Spring Training NON-ROSTER INVITEES (NRI) 

Last updated 3-17-2024
 
* bats or throws left
# bats both

PITCHERS: 17
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Jose Cuas
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Caleb Kilian
Mark Leiter Jr
* Luke Little
Julian Merryweather
Hector Neris 
Daniel Palencia
* Drew Smyly
* Justin Steele
Jameson Taillon
Hayden Wesneski 
* Jordan Wicks

NRI PITCHERS: 5 
Colten Brewer 
Carl Edwards Jr 
* Edwin Escobar 
* Richard Lovelady 
* Thomas Pannone 

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

NRI CATCHERS: 2  
Jorge Alfaro 
Joe Hudson 

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

NRI INFIELDERS: 3 
David Bote 
Garrett Cooper
* Dominic Smith

OUTFIELDERS: 5
* Cody Bellinger 
Alexander Canario
# Ian Happ
Seiya Suzuki
* Mike Tauchman 

NRI OUTFIELDERS: 1 
* David Peralta

OPTIONED:
Kevin Alcantara, OF 
Michael Arias, P 
Ben Brown, RHP 
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF 
Brennen Davis, OF 
Porter Hodge, RHP 
* Matt Mervis, 1B 
Keegan Thompson, P 
Luis Vazquez, INF 

 



Minor League Rosters
Rule 5 Draft 
Minor League Free-Agents

Cubs Acquire Henry Rodriguez from Nats

The Cubs have acquired 26-year old Venezuelan flame-throwing RHRP Henry Rodriguez from the Washington Nationals for minor league RHP Ian Dickson.

Dickson was the Cubs 35th round draft pick out of Lafayette College in 2011, and was used as both a starter and a reliever at Kane County this season, posting an ugly 6.88 ERA and 1.50 WHIP in 35.1 IP and 11 Games (3 GS). He was a candidate to get demoted to Boise (and probably released post-2013) if he hadn't been traded. 

Rodriguez was Designated for Assignment by the Nats on June 4th to make room on their 40-man roster for LHP Ian Kroll, so they had until Friday (6/14) to either trade him, release him, or send him outright to the minors. However, because it takes two days to get a player through waivers, Washington really only had until 2 PM (EDT) Wednesday (today) to trade him. (He was NOT placed on waivers, otherwise he could not have been traded).
Despite the 102+ MPH fastball, Rodriguez has struggled big-time with control this season (16 BB in 18 IP, and a career 98 BB in 144.2 IP), and that's probably why the Nationals lost their patience with him.  

Rodriguez is out of minor league options, and he will be (first time) eligible for salary arbitration post-2013. NOTE: Darwin BarneyCody Ransom, James Russell, Jeff Samardzija, Nate Schierholtz, Luis Valbuena, and Travis Wood are the other players presently on the Cubs 40-man roster who will be arbitration-eligible post-2013 (and Julio Borbon will probably be eligible for salary arbitration as a "Super Two"). 

The Cubs will need to drop a player from the 25-man roster when Rodriguez reports, and that will probably just be a matter of placing RHP Zach Putnam (sore elbow) on the 15-day DL.

RHP Eduardo Sanchez (who was Designated for Assignment to make room on the Cubs MLB 40-man roster for H. Rodriguez) does NOT have the right to elect free-agency if outrighted (he has not been outrighterd previously in his career, he has not accrued three years of MLB Service Time, and he was not a "Super Two" player post-2012). However, if he is outrighted he would automatically become an MLB Rule 55 minor league FA (so-called "six-year minor league free-agent") at 5 PM on the 5th day following the conclusion of the 2013 World Series, unless he agrees to a 2014 minor league successor contract prior to the deadline, or is added back to an MLB 40-man roster prior to the conclusion of the 2013 MLB regular season.

C-1B-3B Steve Clevenger (strained oblique) is eligible to be reintstated from the Cubs 60-day DL tomorrow (Thursday 6/13), and as much as Manager Dale Sveum likes the flexibility provided by having a 3rd catcher on the roster, it does not look like there will be room for Clevenger on the 25-man roster at this time. So look for the Cubs to reinstate Clevenger from the DL and then option him to Iowa. (He will get recalled if anything happens to Welington Castillo or Dioner Navarro, or whenever Navarro gets traded), Another player will need to be removed from the 40-man roster when Clevenger is reinstated, and that could very well be (that man) Putnam again, who could be transferred to the 60-day DL after spending one day on the 15-day DL.

MLB Article XX-B free-agents signed to Major League contracts after last season received automatic "no trade" rights through June 15th, so therefore Scott Baker, Shawn Camp, Scott Feldman, Edwin Jackson, Carlos Villanueva, Dioner Navarro, and Scott Hairston can be traded without having to give their permission beginning this coming Sunday. NOTE: Carlos Marmol and Alfonso Soriano also have "no trade" rights, but their "no trade" rights are contractural (Marmol through the 2013 season, and Soriano through 2014). 

Comments

AZ Phil - The Cubs took in quite a bit of cash when they sold the rights/contracts of Micah Hoffpauir, Bobby Scales, and Bryan LaHair (with their approval) to teams in Japan. Can the Cubs sell Ian Stewart to a team in Japan without his okay or would he need to approve the deal? I think I already know the answer here. But the movie Mr. Baseball sticks in my head. And as we all know evrything that happens in movies is true.

Q-MAN: When an MLB club sells a player to Japan, they don't sell his contract. 

What happens is, the player is given permission (in advance) by his MLB club to negotiate with an NPB (Japanese) club. So it's the player's choice to negotiate with an NPB club, but only after he receives permission from his MLB club. 

Then if the player reaches agreement on a contract with the NPB club, the player requests his Outright Release and the NPB club sends a cash payment to the MLB club (as happened with Hoffpauir, Scales, and LaHair). This cash payment is negotiable, and if it's not enough, the MLB club can just refuse to release the player.

If the NPB club and the MLB club do agree to the cash payment amount, then the MLB club releases the player.

If it's a minor league player (as was the case with Scales and would be the case with Ian Stewart), he just gets released. If the player is on the MLB club's 40-man roster (as was the case with  Hoffpauir and LaHair), the club places the player on Outright Release Waivers with the stipulation that the player is being given his release so that he can sign with a Japanese club. If he were to be claimed (and he could be), the player can decline the claim (all Outright Release Waiver claims have a player refusal right). 

The whole thing is kind of similar to the NPB posting system. It's just that the quality of player going from the U. S. to Japan doesn't match the quality of player who usually comes to the U. S. after being posted. Of course an NPB free-agent is not bound by the posting system, and an MLB free-agent doesn't have to request his release, so it only applies to players who are under a club's control.  

Theo on Baez (and more): “A lot of his errors have been extreme plays at the end of his range or weird things on rundowns or trying to do too much,” Epstein said. “He needs to polish that up. We actually feel better at this moment about his ability to play shortstop every day in the big leagues than we did on Opening Day because of the way he’s playing shortstop. He needs to clean it up but I have no doubt he can play shortstop at the big league level.” http://muskat.mlblogs.com/2013/06/11/611-extra-bases-2/

Not making this up....the player in today's starting line-up with the highest Slugging % is....Travis Wood.

Cubs are 7-21 against NL Central and 18-17 against the rest of baseball.

apparently twitter updated their widgets without telling anyone...anyway upper left box is fixed now.

It is a far more appeasing aesthitic...and any images tweeted show up now.

Jim Callis‏@jimcallisBA #Cubs sign 9th-rder Charcer Burks for $170k. Texas HS OF, great workout right before the draft, ran 6.5 in 60, held own w/wood. #mlbdraft

for the 2nd time in 2 years i.stewart has closed his twitter account after saying/writing something stupid.

Hey everybody - as a daily reader I feel like I know some of you so I thought I'd pass on that we had our third child and first boy this morning. Drinks are on me - Cheers!

btw, there's a lot of "100mph" thrown around about h.rodriguez, but he's dropped his velocity the past few years. he throws a lot more 96-98mph that touches 99+mph on occasions more-so than he's bringing 99-100+mph. he was bringing it at/near/over 100mph more consistently 09-10. ...still...97mph...hell yeah.

c.archer didn't fare so well tonight after a promising showing last time out vs BAL...though it didn't sting his ERA too badly. 103 pitches in 4 innings...ton of pitches in the 3rd and 4th. his control issues were worse than the 4 walks show (58-103 strikes-pitches). 4ip 4h 4bb 7k, 2er

[ ]

In reply to by John Beasley

Rizzo is struggling again (5 for 32 in June), but I'm not as concerned about him as I am Castro. I am beginning to question if Sveum is the right guy for this team right now. I know Sveum can't make these guys hit, but your two top core guys are looking really bad lately, and are clearly not on an upward trend. The Cubs have invested a ton of money on their success, and it's not happening. And I know we don't expect much out of Barney hitting-wise, but a .281 OBP from a non-OPS second baseman isn't acceptable for a major league team. Castillo should also be a better hitter than he is. He shows flashes, but ... If a manager is supposed to get the best out of your players, either TheoCorp is doing a really lousy job of getting good players, or Sveum is doing a lousy job of getting the best out of these kids. The TheoCorp regime is going to be measured by how well guys like Castro and Rizzo do. These guys are in their formative years in terms of development at the mlb level and right now Sveum is lording over some seriously bad numbers.

[ ]

In reply to by Old and Blue

I was thinking the same -- it will be a tough mid-year performance review meeting for Dale. Theo: "OK Dale, we agreed that your top prioriy this year was to develop the kids, who will be part of our future core -- and, of course, we hired you because you are a good hitting coach. Let's talk about the progress Castro, Rizzo, Castillo and Barney have made this year." Dale: "Each has regressed significantly since last year. Castillo is the only one hitting over .250, and he has all of 11 RBI. Castro and Castillo openly reject the concept of OBP. Barney is god-awful; this could be his last year as a professional baseball player. Rizzo has hit one HR since May 6. On the plus side, Travis Wood is really clobbering the ball." Theo: "uh, Dale?" Dale: "Yeah?" Theo: "Get the hell out of my office."

[ ]

In reply to by billybucks

My first thought is that Theo is probably smart enough not to put much stock in a mid-year review, because he knows that 60 games or so is not enough of a sample size to gauge performance. Rizzo's BABIP is 40 points below where it was last year, and his OPS is still comparable (.778 vs .805) and he has 100 fewer at-bats at this point, and he has been admittedly slumping the last few weeks. I would expect a natural rebound over the remaining 3.5 months, and he will end up having a nice season for his first full big league campaign at age 23. Castillo's BA is about the same as last year, but his walks are way down and he has hit fewer home runs (though the same number of doubles). But we only have 194 PAs from this year to compare to 190 PAs from last year at this point. But he's a career .265 minor league hitter and a career .258 major league hitter, and hitting .256 this year. So I would guess his power will bounce back a bit and he will draw a few more walks as the season continues and that OPS will creep up by the end. And if he plays good defense and has an OPS close to 700 or so during his first full big league season at age 26 then I think everyone will be happy. I think the main thing with those two guys is to see them get 150 games under their belts and not see any major regressions. Over the last month (since May 14th) Barney's OPS is .645 and his career OPS is .647, last year it was .653. He just really struggled the first 25 days or so after coming off the DL. Does his defense makeup for the fact that his OPS is about 75-100 points worse than most starting second basemen? I don't know. But he's almost 28 and has nearly 1500 PAs. He is what he is I think, and expecting Dale or anyone else to improve him is probably unrealistic. Castro is really scuffling, there is no denying that. But from comments from the Cubs brass it sounds like they think its growing pains as he works on parts of his game at the plate, and are hoping he will come out of this slump a better hitter for it. But we won't know that until the end of the season or even next year. On the plus side, Valbuena's OPS is .760, which is 110 points higher than last year. I don't know if he can keep it up, but he sees a lot of pitches per at bat and walks a lot.

[ ]

In reply to by WISCGRAD

if the kids understand their roles...are putting their work in...aren't pissy towards outlook/organization...dale is doing his job, imo. you can't really look at production and tie it to the manager unless it's being dragged down by "headcase issues" aggravated by the issues above. if castro is sucking because he hates showing up for work, can't understand why he's being bounced around in the lineup, has to deal with a clubhouse he doesn't want to show up to, is getting a bit lazy with work because of a lack of being appropriately pushed, etc...that's a manager issue. if workplace/environment issues are solid i can't blame castro's regression on the manager anymore than i can give total credit to him for valbuena/ransom becoming one the best 3rd base combos in the league.

COL/gray agree to terms. assigned to Grand Junction (R)...season starts in about a week.

Mostly fluff on Vogelbach: “He’s had a good year, so far,” said Brandon Hyde, the Chicago Cubs director of minor leagues. “He’s athletic. He has improved defensively. He has stayed on top of his conditioning. He does some things physically that we didn’t anticipate him doing.” Despite his 6-foot, 250-pound frame, Vogelbach has deceptive speed on the basepaths to match his prowess as a power hitter. He has stolen three bases in four attempts. “I’ve lost a lot of weight,” said Vogelbach, who has weighed as much as 268. “My body fat has gone down a ton. At 250, I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been in before.” http://www.news-press.com/article/20130607/SPORTS/306070031

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

CUBS WIN! ...cubs pitchers with 20Ks through 14...masterful pen work all around (8ip 3h 0bb 14K, 6 pitchers)

Recent comments

  • crunch (view)

    SF snags b.snell...2/62m

  • Cubster (view)

    AZ Phil: THAT is an awesome report worth multiple thanks. I’m sure it will be worth reposting in an “I told you so” in about 2-3 years.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    The actual deadline to select a post-2023 Article XX-B MLB free agent signed to 2024 minor league contract (Cooper, Edwards, and Peralta) to the MLB 40-man roster is not MLB Opening Day, it is 12 PM (Eastern) this coming Sunday (3/24). 

    However, the Cubs could notify the player prior to the deadline that the player is not going to get added to the 40 on Sunday, which would allow the player to opt out early. Otherwise the player can opt out anytime after the Sunday deadline (if he was not added to the 40 by that time). 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Today is an off day for both the Cubs MLB players and the Cubs minor league players.  

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    For those of you keeping track, so far nine players have been called up to Mesa from the Cubs Dominican Academy for Minor League Camp and they will be playing in the ACL in 2024: 

    * bats or throws left 

    Angel Cepeda, INF 
    * Miguel Cruz, P
    Yidel Diaz, C 
    * Albert Gutierrez, 1B
    Fraiman Marte, P  
    Francis Reynoso, P (ex-1B) 
    Derniche Valdez, INF 
    Edward Vargas, OF 
    Jeral Vizcaino, P 

    And once again, despite what you might read at Baseball Reference and at milb.com, Albert Gutierrez is absolutely positively a left-handed hitter (only), NOT a right-handed hitter.

    Probably not too surprisingly, D. Valdez was the Cubs #1 prospect in the DSL last season, Cepeda was the DSL Cubs best all-around SS prospect not named Derniche Valdez, Gutierrez was the DSL Cubs top power hitting prospect not named Derniche Valdez, E. Vargas was the DSL Cubs top outfield prospect (and Cepeda and E. Vargas were also the DSL Cubs top two hitting prospects), Y. Diaz was the DSL Cubs top catching prospect, and M. Cruz was the DSL Cubs top pitching prospect. 

    F. Marte (ex-STL) and J. Vizcaino (ex-MIL) are older pitchers (both are 22) who were signed by the Cubs after being released by other organizations and then had really good years working out of the bullpen for the Cubs in the DSL last season. 

    The elephant in the room is 21-year old Francis Reynoso, a big dude (6'5) who was a position player (1B) at the Cardinals Dominican Academy for a couple of years, then was released by STL in 2022, and then signed by the Cubs and converted to a RHP at the Cubs Dominican Academy (and he projects as a high-velo "high-leverage" RP in the states). He had a monster year for the DSL Cubs last season (his first year as a pitcher). 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    DJL: The only players who definitely have opt outs are Cooper, Edwards, and Peralta (Opening Day, 5/1, and 6/1), and that's because they are post-2023 Article XX-B MLB free agents who signed 2024 minor league contracts and (by rule) they get those opt outs automatically. 

    Otherwise, any player signed to a 2024 minor league contract - MIGHT or - MIGHT NOT - have an opt out in their contract, but it is an individual thing, and if there are contractual opt outs the opt out(s) might not necessarily be Opening Day. It could be 5/1, or 6/1, or 7/1 (TBD).

    Because of their extensive pro experience, the players who most-likely have contractual opt outs are Alfaro, Escobar, and D. Smith, but (again), not necessarily Opening Day. 

    Also, just because a player has the right to opt out doesn't mean he will. 

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    I love the idea that Madrigal heads to Iowa in case Morel can’t handle third.

    The one point that intrigues me here is Cooper over Smith. I feel like the Cubs really like Smith and don’t want to lose him. Could be wrong. He def seems like an opt out if he misses the opening day roster

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Childersb3: Both Madrigal and Wisdom can be optioned without any restriction. Their consent is not required. 

    They both can be outrighted without restriction, too (presuming the player is not claimed off waivers), but if outrighted they can choose to elect free agency (immediately, or deferred until after the end of the MLB season).

    If the player is outrighted and elects free-agency immediately he forfeits what remains of his salary.

    If he accepts the assignment and defers free agency until after the conclusion of the season, he continues to get his salary, and he could be added back to the 40 anytime prior to becoming a free-agent (club option). 

  • Childersb3 (view)

    Phil, 
    Madrigal and Wisdom can or cannot refuse being optioned to the Minors?
    If they can refuse it, wouldn't they elect to leave the Cubs org?

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    In my opinion, the biggest "affirmative" mistake the Cubs made in the off-season (that is, doing something they should not have done), was blowing $9M in 2024 AAV on Hector Neris. What the Cubs actually need is an alternate closer to be in the pen and available to close if Alzolay pitched the day before (David Robertson would have been perfect), because with his forearm issue last September, I would be VERY wary of over-using Alzolay. I'm not even sure I would pitch him two days in a row!  

    And of course what the Cubs REALLY need is a second TOR SP to pair with Justin Steele. That's where the Cubs are going to need to be willing to package prospects (like the Padres did to acquire Dylan Cease, the Orioles did to acquire Corbin Burnes, and the Dodgers did to acquire Tyler Glasnow). Obviously those ships have sailed, but I would say right now the Cubs need to look very hard at trying to acquire LHSP Jesus Luzardo from the Marlins (and maybe LHP A. J. Puk as well).