Cubs MLB Roster

Cubs Organizational Depth Chart
40-Man Roster Info

40 players are on the MLB RESERVE LIST (roster is full), plus one player is on the 60-DAY IL 

26 players on MLB RESERVE LIST are ACTIVE, twelve players are on OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT to minors, one player is on the 15-DAY IL, and one player is on the 10-DAY IL

Last updated 3-28-2024
 
* bats or throws left
# bats both

PITCHERS: 13
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Jose Cuas
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Mark Leiter Jr
* Luke Little
Julian Merryweather
Hector Neris 
* Drew Smyly
* Justin Steele
* Jordan Wicks

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

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

OUTFIELDERS: 4
* Cody Bellinger 
# 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 

10-DAY IL: 1 
Patrick Wisdom, INF 

15-DAY IL: 1 
Jameson Taillon, P 

60-DAY IL: 1 
Caleb Kilian, P 

 



 

Minor League Rosters
Rule 5 Draft 
Minor League Free-Agents

A PCL Pitchers' Duel!?

It's a shame there weren't more people there to see it because duels of legitimate pitching prospects like the one that played out last night at Principal Park are rare in the homer-happy Pacific Coast League.

 The mundanely named Bud Norris and your own fighting Irishman with Samardzija scrabbled on his mail fought each other to a 2-2 standoff before Round Rock eventually prevailed 7-5.

For his part, Samardzija looked every bit the big leaguer in waiting as he carved his way through the Texans' lineup to the tune of six innings, one walk, five strikeouts, less than six dozen pitches and a lone hit, that unfortunately being a two-run homer by Reggie Abercrombie who would later blast an encore that put his team ahead to stay.

Samardzija offered first pitch strikes to 12 of the 21 hitters he faced and 49 of his mere 71 pitches were strikes.

His inning by inning pitch counts broke down thusly: 11,13,9,9,18, and 11. Abercrombie's homer followed a two-out walk in the 5th.

Samardzija hit more batters [2] than hit him.

The prodigious Jake Fox smote a tying two-run blast beyond the center field wall in the bottom of the sixth to swell his RBI total to 20 already in only 10 games. That finished Norris, Houston's #2 prospect, who appears as tenacious and hard-throwing as his counterpart. Both were throwing in the low to mid 90's and one can imagine them opposing each other in Houston and Chicago before much longer.

Between the 6th and 7th innings I spotted a very high-ranking Chicago Cub official in the seats directly behind home plate and wandered down to see if I might pick a little at his large brain. I introduced myself by name and affiliation.

"After the game," he said, "I'm working right now." as though he were a player and I an autograph hound. I said I didn't mean to interrupt; just thought I could ask a couple quickies between frames.

"Whaddaya wanna ask?" he gasped as his eyes rolled.

"Does Jake Fox have a big league future with this organization? Are other teams interested in him?"

"That's none of your business." the wheeler-dealer said. "Do you expect me to tell you what teams have asked me about him?"

"No," said I. "I just wondered if there's interest in him."

"Jake Fox is a big league hitter." he declared in summation.

Then followed an even briefer, but no less pleasant, discourse about young Mr. Samardzija's progress after which I thanked him for his time and left him to enjoy what remained of what I like to call the "I think my husband's home" race in which contestants scramble to dress themselves in a uniform ASAP and lunge across a finish line in pursuit of a gift certificate for a free oil change.

I hope the high-powered observer enjoyed the 7th inning stretch, by which time Samardzija had showered and I was on my way to a late showing of "State of Play". Russell Crowe also looked very sharp...MW

Comments

I just cannot believe that Joey Gathright is more valuable on the Cubs bench than Jake Fox would be.

Thanks Iowa Mike! Jake Fox is clearly a major-league hitter. This brings up a question: Just how bad is he defensively? He started his career as a catcher, but presumably shed the tools of ignorance because he was terrible. Even a bad defensive catcher with a good bat gets a major league job. He has played some LF and RF; I'm sure he's not a good outfielder, but how bad? Are we talking Carlos Lee bad, Adam Dunn bad, or a whole new level of stink? He's AL trade bait

[ ]

In reply to by Q-Ball

AZ Phil's spring training reports pretty much summed him up as uncapable of playing any defensive position on the field. What he lacks in skills is only dwarfed by his complete defensive ineptitude. And I'm pretty sure that's how the Cubs think about him as well. Seems like you could hide him at 1b maybe, but he's #3 on that depth chart in this organization.

Well, Big Jake has played errorless ball @ 1B so far, but there was a play in Friday night's game that perhaps spoke to his defensive instincts, or lack thereof. He waited on a slow roller up the line instead of charging it, allowing the ball to eventually carom off the bag. That resulted in what looked like a scramble to recover a fumble between Fox & pitcher Randy Wells - luckily Wells came up w/ the ball & got a toe on the base in time to nip the runner...

COTTS WATCH: TCR alert to see when Cotts gets sent down. Keep watching the "wires" boys. I was thinking about the Gathright AB yesterday. There were better LH hitters on the bench, but in Lou's mind, he may have thought that he gives the club a chance on a grounder or IF slow-roller. However, with a swinging K, there was no chance. I also wondered if a suicide bunt would have had a chance - however, a force at any base with the bags juiced makes this a difficult proposition. It was a terrible AB any way ya slice it. It is going to be a long season if the starters cannot go deeper. And, Jim Hendry fucked the Cubs with the Demp deal. At the rate he is going, 12 wins will be a long shot.

Questions: 1. Did you offer the high ranking Cubs official some donuts? 2. Is Jake Fox the White Sam Horn for the new Millennium?

All I offered was my hand in friendship...as for Jake Fox/Sam Horn, yeah, ebony & ivory; the one-syllable sluggers - one punch knocker-outers

Was it obvious who the high ranking official was? or is it a secret? He sounds like a dick. Hendry is high ranking. Fleita is a dick.

Jason Waddell is the lead lefty in the Iowa pen; unscored upon in 4 outings w/ 0 WALKS over a scant 3&1/3...hasn't worked in either of the 2 home games so far, but imagine Hendry would want a look @ him if they were gonna drive back to Chicago together...

Hey, Mike. I asked this in a past post, but I think it may have gotten lost in a discussion on Milton Bradley and overreactions, so here I go again: Nate Spears started at SS the other day. Have you seen him play any SS? How does he look? He sure seems to be a Fontenot Lite (if that's possible), so I would guess that if he's passable at SS that gives him a much better chance of seeing the majors (particularly with the Cubs).

Charlie - Spears has started so far @ 3B, 2B & SS; his path may be as a utility-type spare part...note that he won the 'best hustler' award last year in the Southern League which, assuming it was deserved, makes him my kind o' ballplayer - no surprise that MLB bestows no equivalent award these days...

that "affiliation" thing might be your downfall with the returned attitude...esp. if you weren't talking to a low-level scout who can generally be bought off with a stadium beer or nachos (ha). over the past few years bloggers have "used" too many scouts for their sources and if you think the Tribune releasing rumors are a sore spot, they can at least be taken care of with a direct call to the reporter with a number already at hand (and a pre-existing relationship). when/if you get deemed a non-threat or someone that uses their sources in a non-drama-inducing way things generally get better. i got little experience dealing with the high-end talent evaluators, though. as gruff as some can be you at least got some good stuff outta him.

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

While I'd also like to pick his brain, I have no problem with him keeping his cards close. It'd be silly to let the rest of the league know what you want to do. Plus, if he told us exactly what he was going to do, we'd all have to go back to discussing that 3-2 Bradley pitch... Or conservative v liberal stuff... Or NFL wide recievers... Or France! (what happend to Karl anyhow?)

"That's none of your business." the wheeler-dealer said. "Do you expect me to tell you what teams have asked me about him?" the "wheeler-dealer" comment makes it pretty obvious imo that it was hendry that he met with.

Just saw Woody pitching for the Tribe on TBS. K's Posada on three pitches. Sigh - I wish they coulda worked something out between each other (Hendry/KW).

An excellent decision - it's been raining pretty hard here over the past 4 hours, no need to risk more injuries this early in the season.

could baseball-reference.com cram more useless stuff into their webpage? if you're like me and highlight stuff to read it better (small black text on a white background...brilliant) then you churn away background processes that aggregate years into a pop-up. i like the OPTION of being able to do that, but geez...first it's made harder to read then the things i do to read it better are negated. i'm sure i can block it like those sites that think if i want to highlight text means i need a dictionary or websearch (very very very lame)...but still... i miss html 3.2... ...and don't get me started on the VERY useless flash-based-only sites. i could care less how "pretty" my internet experience is with someone's brand if i can't find the info i need off their site without clicking through a mountain of pictures and dropdown menus using hover-over technology.

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

Firefox with Flashblock.

[ ]

In reply to by Mister Whipple

it's not flash driven...it's a script that does it. i basically blocked all scripts on baseball-reference.com with ABP coming from the problem area... http://www.baseball-reference.com/js/* mainly, im sick of seeing web pages get more bloated without me being able to define how bloated i want my experience.

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

Have you looked into Greasemonkey? Someone may have already used it to build a script that disables the [highlight text] = [do something annoying] script. If not you may be able to build your own. Let me know if you want my help. This is a pet peeve of mine as well.

Cards are just going back home Tuesday, Cubs are still at home. Maybe they'll just play it tomorrow.

Another day; another homer, double & 2 rbi for Meister Fox...nice outing for Atkins too [finally]

Well, perhaps there will be an in-season trade for a LH relief pitcher to an AL team for Fox?

Recent comments

  • hellfrozeover (view)

    I would say also in the bright side column is Busch looked pretty good overall at the plate. Alzolay…man, that hurts but most of the time he’s not giving up a homer to that guy. To me the worst was almonte hanging that pitch to Garcia. He hung another one to the next hitter too and got away with it on an 0-1. 

  • crunch (view)

    amaya blocked like 6-8 of smyly's pitches in the dirt very cleanly...not even an exaggeration, smyly threw a ton of pitches bouncing in tonight.

    neris looking like his old self was a relief (no pun), too.

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    In looking for bright spots the defense was outstanding tonight. The “stars” are going to need to shine quite a bit brighter than they did tonight offensively though for this to be a successful season.

  • Eric S (view)

    Good baseball game. Hopefully Steele is pitching again in April (but I’m not counting on it). 

  • crunch (view)

    boo.

  • crunch (view)

    smyly to face the 2/3/4 hitters with a man on 2nd in extras.

    this doesn't seem like a 8 million dollar managerial decision.

  • crunch (view)

    i 100% agree with you, but i dunno how jed wants to run things.  the default is delay.  i would choose brown.

    like hellfrozeover says, could be smyly since he's technically fresh and stretched.

    anyway, on a pure talent basis....brown is the best option.

  • Childersb3 (view)

    Use pitchers when you believe they're good. Don't plan their clock.

    I'm sorry. I'm simply anti-clock/contract management. Play guys when they show real MLB potential talent.

    If Brown hadn't been hurt with the Lat Strain he would've gotten the call, and not Wick.

    Give him a chance. 

    But Wesneski probably gets it

  • crunch (view)

    alzolay...bro...

  • crunch (view)

    wow.  what a blown call.  go cubs, i guess.