Cubs MLB Roster

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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

Chicago, We Have a Problem (or Maybe Not)

We do love our guest columns since we all get to take the day off from writing. Today, it's the ever cantankerous Real Neal taking on The Fielding Bible System.

The other day I bought The Hardball Times 2009 Baseball Annual. I haven’t finished yet, but as of so far, I would say save your money.

In it, though, there is an article about titled “Fielding Breeds Winning” by a certain John Dewan, which goes into some detail about how the Fielding Bibles’ Plus/Minus system helps determine which teams have a real shot at the title. I’ve argued in the comments about inherent flaws in the Plus/Minus system, but there are a lot of people, famous baseball statistical analysts who think it’s the greatest thing since high socks. My main point of contention with it, is that we know that people are biased when it comes to evaluating fielding, based on some of the ridiculous Golden Glove awards handed out, yet we go from our 500 person sample size for those awards to 3 people sample sizes for the Plus/Minus system, and somehow conclude that the latter is more accurate. Really quickly, the system looks at all plays and says for each one – if any fielder in the majors missed a play you made, you get a Plus, and if you missed a play that any fielder made, you get a Minus. Add up your Pluses and your minues and you get Plus/Minus score for the season.

Well, you might be thinking, isn’t this article supposed to be about a Chicago baseball team, and preferably the Cubs, since that’s who I come here to read about? Well, yeah, it is about the Cubs, because according to this system, the Plus/Minus system, the 2008 Cubs were living on borrowed time.

Something you can find it in this same Annual or at various other baseball statistic sites around the net is a stat called Defensive Efficiency Rating. It’s the reverse of BABIP (batting average on balls in play). How often do PA’s which don’t end in walks, Home Runs or strike outs get turned into an out. The 2008 Cubs, Jim Edmonds and all, lead the league and did it pretty easily with a .706 DER, that’s six tenths of a percent ahead of second place Milwaukee. Which, I think we as the fans, and definitely the pitching staff would agree is a good thing. But here’s the rub. The highly touted Plus/Minus system ranked the Cubs as the leagues’ 13th best team, at minus 27 plays. So an ‘average’ defensive team would have given up 27 hits less than the Cubs. Only the Reds, Rockies and Pirates managed worse team totals.

Now, if you take the highly touted Plus/Minus system for its word, that leads to my titular problem. It is possible, in theory, that the Cubs could have turned balls into outs at a higher rate than all of their competition merely by the virtue of good luck. Yes, they had the best rate, but they were merely fortunate that of the roughly 5600 times hitters were kept in the park by the Cubs staff, many of those balls were hit softly or right to Cubs defenders. If they had such good luck in 2008, then odds are they’ll regress to average luck in 2009, and have some ERA problems. 5600 is a pretty big number, but let’s dig a little deeper.

Usually if you’re going to give up a batted ball, the best kind is a ground ball. The second best kind is a fly ball that stays in the park, and the worst thing to do is give up line drives. During one of our many off-season debates, Rob G dug up the fact that Marmol gave up very few line drives in 2008, which accounted for some of his luck with BABIP (which remember, is essentially the same thing as DER). So maybe it wasn’t the Cubs fielders, but maybe their pitchers gave up fewer line drives than other staffs (staves?) and their position players and DER were merely happy beneficiaries of this skill. That would certainly explain at least a large part of the gap between the two measures.

Line Drives - Cubs 20% League Average 20.7% the best being 19% and the worst being 22%. The Cubs were roughly middle of the pack.

Well, fly balls are not as bad, but they can be bad, how did the Cubs and their diving-for-balls-that-Carlos-Beltran-gets-to-in-a-jog pitching staff do? 39%. League average is 35.2%.

So we can see that the Cubs staff gave up a little fewer line drives, and a pretty good chunk more fly balls than the average NL team. With my amazing math skills I can now conclude, without serious number crunching that the Boys in Blue gave up fewer of the best outcome (groundballs) than the average pitching staff.

But there still is those three guys with their tapes of the games, and their computer screens and they say the Cubs fielders were no good.

Well, maybe the Cubs advance scouts and coaches were just really good at determining where the fielders should set up, you might say. And that may be true, but the Plus/Minus system goes by fielding zones, so if the right fielder is told to stand on the foul line, and a screecher is hit right to him (which he catches), he gets a +, just like some poor schmuck who had to make a diving grab and slam into the wall. So, that cannot be it. That can explain the good DER score, but it cannot explain away the bad Plus/Minus score.

At this point, I am starting to call ‘bullshit’. But maybe it’s true. Maybe even with a sample size of 5600 plays, the Cubs pitchers just happened to have a knack of getting the hitter to hit it at the fielders. (Totally different study, but if there are league and park factors to determine how good leagues are and how easy parks are to hit in, then why aren’t there any factors to determine if different teams are better at hitting away from fielders). I’ve got 5600 plays, and I’ve got three guys with a VHS and a laptop. Call it intuition, but I am going to lean towards the 5600 plays.

But still, it’s nagging me. Luck, I know it exists. Can it exist for that many plays? Or could it be that my suspicion about the dubious likelihood of the Fielding Bible reviewers being able to be objective is valid.

We know that with Golden Gloves, the voters (MLB players and coaches) have problems being objective. They’re heavily influenced by an occasional flashy play, and more bizarrely, hitting prowess. Why are these guys, professional players and former professional players more likely to be biased than the three guys with the VHS machine? The answer is of course simple, they’re not. The Fielding Bible Plus/Minus system tries to be objective. They make the people chart very narrowly where a ball is hit, and they enter how hard it is hit. The ‘where’ part bothers me a little, because different cameras can be positioned slightly different at each ballpark, and a play that looks like a zone 3Z at Wrigley, could be recorded as a 3X at Busch. The inherent objectiveness of how hard the ball is hit bothers me a lot more. Some guy may decide it takes a 75 MPH line drive to be a hard hit ball, while another guy evaluating a different team may set his ‘hard’ line at 90 MPH. Then take the fact that these guys know that Albert Pujols is a supreme player and that Rafael Palmeiro is a Gold Glove deserving first basemen, and that when they dive to make a play, it must have been a hard hit ball.

Let’s say, just for kicks that reputation plays a part in the Plus/Minus system just like it does in the flawed Gold Glove evaluations. How can that be shown?

In statistics there is something called the ‘Variance’. Essentially it gives us a number that describes the change from one set of numbers to the next. If you believe that team fielding is relatively constant from one year to the next, then it stands to reason that a fielding rating system which has a lower variance, will ‘feel’ more accurate than a system with a higher variance. The Hardball Times Baseball Annual, again courtesy of the guys over at The Fielding Bible, give the Plus/Minus team rankings for 2007 and 2008. The average variance between teams’ rankings (1 to 30) for those seasons is about 118.

118! That’s it? No, obviously something is needed to compare it to. By referring to Baseball Prospectus you can find the DER for 2007 and 2008. The Variance for those two years is about 109, or less than the Plus/Minus. The variance for 2006 to 2007 for DER is also less, at 86. Those aren’t really huge differences, but they’re what I have freely available.

I really wasn’t comfortable with the three guys and their VCR’s overcoming the 5600 data points that DER gives me. But now, to believe the Plus/Minus system, I’ve got to ignore some 500,000 data points (all plays from 2006 to 2008). This isn’t by any means conclusive proof that Plus/Minus system is bad, but it’s definitely something to think about.

Then there’s the final kicker. How did the Cubs do in 2006? At DER 4th, in MLB. In 2007, they were 2nd, and they were 2nd again last year. So breathe easy Cubs fans and Carlos Zambrano. The Cubs can field noticeably better than The Fielding Bible can guestimate fielding prowess, and you can be pretty confident they’ll carry that forward into 2009.

Comments

the whole idea of searching for these fielding stat holy grails just don't interest me...maybe if i was into math or something on a hobby level. i understand why it's happening, but the massive pimping of these early results i'm not into. scouting fielding quality of a player is something that's just so easy to do with the human element vs. what's currently available on the stats side, but i guess you have to start somewhere. unlike quality hitting scouting which requires a full on warmed up game-quality pitcher...fielding can be replicated outside the game situation pretty realistically...it makes scouting their tools/flaws/gifts/etc. one of the easier ones to evaluate. as far as gold glove voting you brought up...yeah...there's too many voting who pay no attention. no voter involved in the palmeiro GG will never live that one down.

If this is all your original analysis, quite impressive Do any of the statistics you looked at discern between fly outs and pop outs? I believe that is a very telling stat in determining the effectiveness of a pitcher. A pop out is clearly the worst form of contact a hitter can make, as it nearly always results in an out and makes advancing any runners virtually impossible. In my experience a pop out is almost always a result of the hitter being jammed or looking for a different pitch.

[ ]

In reply to by kmokeefe

I think that the Plus/Minus system added a trajectory of fly balls this year for the first time. A lot of the systems just disregard pop-ups when looking at the plays. WebAdmin, most likely known and Rob G lists some of the other popular fielding stats. I've never actually heard that a particular pitcher caused more pop-ups than others, but I would bet the guys that are the same guys who get the most fly balls. When I first started reading about defensive stats and pitchers' tendencies I had trouble believing what they said, that for the most part all pitchers give up hits at the same rate - once you factored out K's. I knew Kerry Wood was always up near the top of BA against, and his stuff is so nasty he got lots of jam balls and ugly swings, but then when you look it up, he's not better than anyone else.

Quantifying fielding frustrates even the most die-hard of Sabermatricians, but they try and try again. For now, I agree that scouting is the preferred judge or predictor. The stats don't take into consideration the kind of route an outfielder takes to the ball (which was a challenge for Fukudome the few times he played center last season), or the field conditions (tall grass, bad infield, etc.). And there are other nuances involving the pitching staff, such as pitchers who are pulled to the left or right on a regular basis.

It's really great to see the stat people taking a serious look at defense. I've long felt it's been largely ignored by the sabers due to a lack of a reasonable quantum, which is unfortunate because defense is such a huge part of the game. I'm not sure if this is going to be that "holy grail" like crunch said... I'd still trust Lou's gut over the numbers any day (insert fat joke here). Still, it's great to see the stat people talking defense. And if they ever do find that silver bullet, it could transform fantasy baseball in a big way.

[ ]

In reply to by Ryno

Fantasy baseball aside, it does make a huge difference. The reason the Rays were in the playoffs this year is that they 'learned' to catch the ball. When you're throwing around $50 million contracts to players, it's important to know who the best fielders are, and maybe just as important to know which pitchers took advantage or were abused by teams that could or not field well. So there's a huge financial incentive towards doing that. The Cards hired MGL (of UZR fame) as a consultant, and have over the last few years done two things well - fielded and got better than expected results out of pitchers. Eventually they'll probably use those lazers they do on home plate to cover the entire field and get crazy-acurate fielding stats. For the time being though, if a guy ranks well in all those mentioned stats, he's probably pretty good. I like the fact that the stats take out the 'scouting' eye. Cubs fans crucified Murton and Soriano's defense in left, because they had trouble going back on balls. One play in 20, is enough to make up people's minds, even though those two guys were fair to excellent on the other 19 plays. That's what the statistics do for you. They keep you from overreacting about a guy being able to make a certain kind of play.

[ ]

In reply to by The Real Neal

"I like the fact that the stats take out the 'scouting' eye." with fielding that's totally unnecessary, though. you can accurately scout fielding outside the game with enough confidence to call it as it is. 1- how you get to the ball from where you start 2- what you do and how well/quickly you complete what you do after #1 to finish the play #2 is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more important than #1...so so so much more. yes, you can't have #2 without number #1, but #2 is where your double plays become a man on 1st and 1 out...where deep infield contact becomes a hit or an out... no one cares mike bordick made a career sitting on the outfield grass scooping up almost everything hit at him at SS cuz 1- he played so deep to make up for his own shortcomings 2- he wasn't that great at finishing up plays (though he wasn't bad) once he got the ball.

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

It seems more that people use the "better defender argument" when the stats don't back up someone's own personal opinions. Example: Milton Bradley is a far superior player to Bobby Abreu because of his fielding prowess in the 19 games he played in the Outfield last year. Example 2: When Jim Hendry attempted to justify giving Neifi Perez a 2 year contract by explaining that he "Really loves guys who can "Catch the ball"." Example 3: Fukudome will be a huge addition to the team whether he hits or not. Because Right field defense will be the difference between 90 wins and 75 wins.

[ ]

In reply to by Ryno

Scouts don't watch every play of every game. They have limited time just like the rest of us. Scouts can turn in a report that says 'lack of range to his left' which can influence a GM or his aids to downgrade a player's defense. When you look at all the plays over one or multiple seasons, you're able to realize 'even though he doesn't go well to his left, he charges bunts hard, turns the double play with ease and always gets popups hit to short right', but two scouts who watched a guy for three games may not see all of that. They may see one ball they thought he should have gotten and mark him as limited.

it's called UZR (Fangraphs), the Fielding Bible or Baseball Prospecutus Fielding Runs Above Average. The system Bill James used for Defensive Win Shares is pretty decent too even if the final number is a bit weird to translate.

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

Kind of humorous, but what is Jake supposed to say? He REALLY wanted to be a Cub, but that didn't happen so he has to show up to work for his current team/employer. Any competitor would rather play for the Cubs over the Padres, just on the better chance to get to October. I hope we do get Peavy down the road, but I applaud Hendry for not getting fleeced at the Winter Meetings, because the asking price then was RIDICULOUS.

[ ]

In reply to by navigator

I'm sure everyone is a competitor, but my assumption is that each guy to a man playing at the highest level of baseball has the ultimate goal of winning a ring, and the odds are much greater in Chicago than SD. Do you believe Peavy when he says that he'd rather stay put than come to Chicago? I don't, but he doesn't really have a choice at the moment, does he?

[ ]

In reply to by Ahone Ahtwo Ahthree

Players play in different locales for different reasons. Brian Giles loves San Diego, so he's there. Not the best chance to win, but he likes it there. Loads of others play in different cities or different teams out of preference knowing they might not sniff a Series with that team. Doesn't detract from their competitiveness. And playing for the Cubs might have lost some luster recently because of the way some of the fans have treated the players.

[ ]

In reply to by navigator

Holy Tae Bo, Batman!

[ ]

In reply to by navigator

woah.

"It's his job to lose," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said of Hoffpauir. "I plan on giving him some playing time at first to rest Derrek [Lee] and also at both corner outfield spots. The kid swings the bat. I don't see any problems there."

This tells me Miles is going to be backing up all IF spots except 1st then, assuming we carry Gathright, ReedJ, Bako, Miles and Hoffpauir for the bench and 12 pitchers. Does anyone here have a feel for whether we will be going after Peavy again once the smoke clears on the Cubs/Padres ownership? I'm sure you guys have talked about this ad nauseum back in Nov/Dec, but I'm new to the blog and have 3 kids, so I don't want to go back and re-read everything said on the topic.

if you're one of those people who think nobody would take a job with the lowly Padres if they got an offer from the Cubs.
PEORIA---Padres manager Bud Black announced that Greg Maddux would be returning to the Padres on Wednesday, albeit in a supervisory role, as a spring training instructor. The move comes two months after Maddux, who ranks eighth all-time with 355 career wins, officially announced his retirement after 23 seasons in the major leagues. The four-time Cy Young Award winner spent all of 2007 with the Padres and was with the club until he was traded to Los Angeles in August. "The experience he brings, you can't simulate that in any way, shape or form," starting pitcher Chris Young said. "It can only help us." Black said that he and Padres general manager Kevin Towers spoke to Maddux throughout the 2008 season and asked him about his future plans. The pair also made inquiries after the season ended, as did the Chicago Cubs. Despite overtures from multiple clubs, Maddux opted to rejoin the Padres beginning later this week. "Last year a lot of our conversations were about the future," Black said. "I said 'Greg, you have some freedom to explore. I'll tell you what I'm thinking about before, during and after the game. ... His role is undefined. It gives me and Kevin (Towers) and the other coaches a great resource."

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).