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

The Cubs Offensive Offense

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.

Comments

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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?

[ ]

In reply to by billybucks

"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.

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

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.

[ ]

In reply to by billybucks

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.

[ ]

In reply to by The Real Neal

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

  • 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.