Cubs MLB Roster

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40-Man Roster Info

40 players are on the MLB RESERVE LIST (roster is full), plus two players are 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 4-18-2024
 
* bats or throws left
# bats both

PITCHERS: 13
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Colten Brewer
Ben Brown
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Mark Leiter Jr
Hector Neris 
* Drew Smyly
Jameson Taillon 
Keegan Thompson
* Jordan Wicks

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

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

OUTFIELDERS: 4
* Cody Bellinger 
# Ian Happ
Seiya Suzuki
* Mike Tauchman 

OPTIONED: 12 
Kevin Alcantara, OF 
Michael Arias, P 
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF 
Jose Cuas, P 
Brennen Davis, OF 
Porter Hodge, P 
* Luke Little, P 
* Miles Mastrobuoni, INF
* Matt Mervis, 1B 
Daniel Palencia, P 
Luis Vazquez, INF 
Hayden Wesneski, P 

10-DAY IL: 1 
Seiya Suzuki, OF

15-DAY IL: 
* Justin Steele, P   

60-DAY IL: 2 
Caleb Kilian, P 
Julian Merryweather, P
 




Minor League Rosters
Rule 5 Draft 
Minor League Free-Agents

The Cubs Offensive Offense

Submitted by Rob G. on

The Cubs struggles offensively are obviously no secret and it's been a team wide affliction that I don't even think a roll in the hay with Amy Winehouse could fix. I took a quick look at their OPS numbers since May 1st:

Lee
.976
R. Johnson
.906
Theriot
.785
Soto
.756
Bradley
.747
Hoffpauir
.682
Fontenot
.678
Fukudome
.670
Soriano
.636
K. Hill
.620

You could pick any arbitrary date and come up with equally appalling numbers such as:

Theriot hasn't taken a walk since June 9. For the month, he's 12-for-49 for a .245 batting average. His OBP for June is .296, and his slugging is .327. He's walked twice and struck out 12 times this month. For the season, Theriot has 18 walks and 39 strikeouts. Last year, he put up an OBP of .387, walking 73 times and striking out 58. His isolated power (slugging minus BA) of .147 is still way up from last year's .052. So that's definitely a good thing.

There's also "Soriano Shame Watch", his numbers since he was embarrassed at a WWE event.

108 PA, 152/222/263 485 OPS, 15 H, 2 HR, 7 R, 5 2B, 31 K, 9 BB

So Soriano can get moved down, Lou can tinker with the lineup or just draw numbers from 1 through 9 to pick the day's lineup, but it's all just trying to put $100 lipstick on the ugliest fucking pig we've seen wearing blue pinstripes since 2006

- To say the least , Jim Hendry didnt't have a good offseason. After displaying the Midas Touch the previous two offseasons, pretty much signing and getting rid of all...okay most...of the right players, he's shown whatever is the exact opposite of the Midas Touch...shall we call it the "Number Two Touch"...where everything turns to shit? Jason Marquis goes from overpaid 5th starter to the league leader in wins with a decent ERA, Mark DeRosa has 12 HR's while the Cubs are a third and second basemen short, Michael Wuertz is striking out the AL as Milton Bradley is pretty much doing everything wrong, Kevin Gregg has been the very definition of mediocre and Aaron Miles is Neifi without the exclamation point.

But for all his past sins, he at least made the right decision on Angel Guzman. The über-prospect from the early part of the decade has had his injury issues to say the least and with the Cubs facing a roster and bullpen crunch, Hendry and Co. could have traded the righty. But Guzman's rewarded the organizations good faith in him with a 2.67 ERA to date along with 25 K's to 10 BB's even though he's a good bet to be one of the "tender" arms in the bullpen that Lou spoke of recently. 

Of course this is a trivial point as the team struggles at .500 and this is not meant to blow sunshine up Hendry's derriere just for the fun of it. Rather, to merely point out amidst this cloud of doom hanging over the city of Chicago that a few rays of sunshine are still poking through.

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Comments

Submitted by Old and Blue on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:18 am

So you're saying that waking up next to Amy Winehouse in the morning would NOT make a player angry enough to start clobbering the ball? I dispute that notion. Also, Rob, did you change your RSS feed URL? The last headline on my google page is the Miles Fox Trot headline.

Submitted by The E-Man on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:38 am

"Soriano Shame Watch" This is good. This is good. You forgot to mention the other uber good call besides Guzman - NOT getting Jake Peavy. At least this year. Everything else Hendry touched, is, as you say, covered in shit.

Submitted by Tito on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:54 am

Peavy hurt himself in a game against the Cubs. If they'd gotten him earlier, that injury doesn't happen. Who knows how he'd have pitched for the Cubs.

Submitted by Cubster on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:29 pm

If they'd gotten him earlier, that injury doesn't happen. Who knows how he'd have pitched for the Cubs. --- or he could have been pitching for the WSux vs Z tonight if Reinsdufus had guaranteed the last year of the JP contract. Since Peavy won the opening game in SD, we might have had just an 0-3 instead of 0-6 road trip in StL/SD. Fun with altered timelines ...oh oh, there is a bizarre rift in space and here comes the Enterprise B and bizarro Jim Hendry and the alternate timeline Cubs through it.

Submitted by billybucks on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:00 pm

Not a big fan of OPS. I know, it's probably a good and meaningful stat to measure a player's offense, but it's a derivative stat that doesn't really translate into anything. Batting average is number of hits divided by number of ABs. Simple and clean. Most hitters who go 1-for-3 will raise their average. Similar concept for OBP. ERA is average number of earned runs per 9 innings. Simple and clean. Same with BB or K per 9 innings. Most pitchers who pitch 6 innings and give up 2 runs will see their ERA go down. What, exactly does OPS represent? Not the math -- what does it represent in terms of what a player does? How does one descibe OPS?

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Submitted by The Real Neal on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:08 pm

"How does one describe OPS?" OPS tells you how valuable a player has been at the plate. It's not really a derivative stat as much as a cumulative one, and obviously it has it's flaws, but if you want one stat to describe how well a player has been doing then OPS is probably the best one that doesn't take a week to figure out. It's the hitter's equivalent to ERA. Both don't tell the whole story, though.

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Submitted by billybucks on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:41 pm

You guys are making my point. Saying it's a great measure of offensive production doesn't answer the question. I have yet to see a description of what it really represents, other than adding two stats together. To me, OPS is like a QB rating in the NFL -- everyone knows what a good score is, but nobody can really describe it in simple terms.

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Submitted by Ryno on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:50 pm

This is one of the reasons why I often just avoid stats in general. There are people out there like Billybucks way smarter than me, and I just don't get it. So if we look at total runs score by a team charted up against batting average you see very little correlation and I think that's why a lot of people just toss the batting average stat away. But you are totally right, it has a concrete meaning: percent of official at bats that guy gets a hit. On the other hand if you plot team OPS up against number of runs scored you see very strong correlation. So I could be wrong (as I often am), but I think the numbers support OPS as a better indicator of run-generating ability. To answer your question "how does one describe OPS?" I would say this: getting on base and driving the ball.

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Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 06:56 pm

that works too, they use 1.5*OBP essentially along with counting SB and CS if I read that correctly. Curious that all the 3 outlets have slightly different multipliers, although I'm way too lazy to bother figuring out why. Considering BP has their own baserunning metric that goes beyond SB's, shouldn't they incorporate that?

I'd use BP more if their website and leaderboards didn't suck so bad to try to navigate and load. Amazing that THT and Fangraphs at probably 1/10th of the revenue can design more accessible websites...but I digress.

Recent comments

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    Indeed they do TJW!

    For the record I’m not in favor of solely building a team through paying big to free agents. But I’m also of the mind that when you develop really good players, get them signed to extensions that buy out a couple years of free agency, including with team options. And supplement the home grown players with free agent splashes or using excess prospects to trade for stars under team control for a few years. Sort of what Atlanta does, basically. Everyone talks about the dodgers but I feel that Atlanta is the peak organization at the current moment.

    That said, the constant roster churn is very Rays- ish. What they do is incredible, but it’s extremely hard to do which is why they’re the only ones frequently successful that employ that strategy. I definitely do not want to see a large market team like ours follow that model closely. But I don’t think free agent frenzies is always the answer. It’s really only the Dodgers that play in that realm. I could see an argument for the Mets too. The Yankees don’t really operate like that anymore since the elder Steinbrenner passed. Though I would say the reigning champions built a good deal of that team through free agent spending.

  • Childersb3 (view)

    The issue is the Cubs are 11-7 and have been on the road for 12 of those 18.  We should be at least 13-5, maybe 14-4. Jed isn't feeling any pressure to play anyone he doesn't see fit.
    But Canario on the bench, Morel not at 3B for Madrigal and Wisdom in RF wasn't what I thought would happen in this series.
    I was hoping for Morel at 3B, Canario in RF, Wisdom at DH and Madrigal as a pinch hitter or late replacement.
    Maybe Madrigal starts 1 game against the three LHSP for Miami.
    I'm thinking Canario goes back to Iowa on Sunday night for Mastrobuoni after the Miami LHers are gone.
    Canario needs ABs in Iowa and not bench time in MLB.
    With Seiya out for a while Wisdom is safe unless his SOs are just overwhelmingly bad.

    My real issue with the lineup isn't Madrigal. I'm not a fan, but I've given up on that one.
    It's Tauchman getting a large number of ABs as the de factor DH and everyday player.
    I didn't realize that was going to be the case.
    We need a better LH DH. PCA or ONKC need to force the issue in about a month.
    But, even if they do so, Jed doesn't have to change anything if the Cubs stay a few over .500!!!

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    Totally depends on the team and the player involved. If your team’s philosophy is to pay huge dollars to bet on the future performance of past stars in order to win championships then, yes, all of the factors you mentioned are important.

    If on the other hand, if the team’s primary focus is to identify and develop future stars in an effort to win a championship, and you’re a young player looking to establish yourself as a star, that’s a fit too. Otherwise your buried within your own organization.

    Your comment about bringing up Canario for the purposes of sitting him illustrates perfectly the dangers of rewarding a non-performing, highly paid player over a hungry young prospect, like Canario, who is perpetually without a roster spot except as an insurance call up, but too good to trade. Totally disincentivizing the performance of the prospect and likely diminishing it.

    Sticking it to your prospects and providing lousy baseball to your fans, the consumers and source of revenue for your sport, solely so that the next free agent gamble finds your team to be a comfortable landing spot even if he sucks? I suppose  that makes sense to some teams but it’s definitely not the way I want to see my team run.

    Once again, DJL, our differences in philosophy emerge!

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    That’s just kinda how it works though, for every team. No team plays their best guys all the time. No team is comprising of their best 26 even removing injuries.

    When baseball became a business, like REALLY a business, it became important to keep some of the vets happy, which in turn keeps agents happy and keeps the team with a good reputation among players and agents. No one wants to play for a team that has a bad reputation in the same way no one wants to work for a company that has a bad rep.

    Don’t get me wrong, I hate it too. But there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

    On that topic, I find it silly the Cubs brought up Canario to sit as much as he has. He’s going to get Velazquez’d, and it’s a shame.

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    Of course, McKinstry runs circles around $25 million man Javier Baez on that Tigers team. Guess who gets more playing time?

    But I digress…

  • Sonicwind75 (view)

    Seems like Jed was trying to corner the market on mediocre infielders with last names starting with "M" in acquiring Madrigal, Mastroboney and Zach McKinstry.  

     

    At least he hasn't given any of them a Bote-esque extension.  

  • Childersb3 (view)

    AZ Phil:
    Rookie ball (ACL) starts on May 4th. Do yo think Ramon and Rosario (maybe Delgado) stay in Mesa for the month of May, then go to MB if all goes "solid"?
     

  • crunch (view)

    masterboney is a luxury on a team that has multiple, capable options for 2nd, SS, and 3rd without him around.  i don't hate the guy, but if madrigal is sticking around then masterboney is expendable.

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    I THINK I agree with that decision. They committed to Wicks as a starter and, while he hasn’t been stellar I don’t think he’s been bad enough to undo that commitment.

    That said, Wesneski’s performance last night dictates he be the next righty up.

    Quite the dilemma. They have many good options, particularly in relief, but not many great ones. And complicating the situation is that the pitchers being paid the most are by and large performing the worst - or in Taillon’s case, at least to this point, not at all.

  • Childersb3 (view)

    Wesneski and Mastrobuoni to Iowa

    Taillon and Wisdom up

    Wesneski can't pitch for a couple of days after the 4 IP from last night. But Jed picked Wicks over Wesneski.

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