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

Marginally Meaningful Cubs Baseball is Still Being Played

The Cubs have won 8 of 10, and 7 of their last 8 to get within 5.5 of the wild card and 8 of the Cardinals. At the very least, it makes the games bearable to watch for the time being. The Cubs have 19 games left and play a few more games than their current competitors, so they're actually just 4 back in the loss column to the Rockies and tied with the Marlins and Braves in that category. They trail the Giants by 2 in the loss column but play them next week. So they'll need some help from teams to beat the Rockies, but in a round-about way, they still control most of their own destiny for the rest of the season.

As for the sort-of-big weekend series versus the Cardinals, it's already guaranteed that the Cardinals won't be able to clinch anything this weekend. That's not going to stop them from trying to bury the Cubs though. They'll send out John Smoltz, Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright for the series against Ted Lilly, Ryan Dempster and Carlos Zambrano. 

Lineups for tonight:

Lopez 2b
Theriot SS
Hart RF
Fukudome CF
Braun LF
Lee 1B
Fielder 1B
Ramirez 3B
McGehee 3B
Soto C
Cameron CF
Bradley RF
Kendall C
Fontenot 2B
Escobar SS
Scales LF
Looper P
Harden P

I wouldn't be suprised if things get a little chippy tonight. The teams have become almost as intense rivals as the Cubs and Cardinals and there were 3 HBP's last night and a few almost HBP's, following Braun getting hit by Dempster the night before.

In the hot 'n cold department, Soto's found his groove with a 1.252 OPS in September and 7 XBH's in 7 games played. Derrek Lee has a 1.333 OPS since August 25th with 9 HR's in 19 games. Then there's Milton Bradley, who hasn't walked since August 30th and has a .447 OPS in that time. Bobby Scales keeps getting playing time in LF despite a .617 OPS in September and some boneheaded defense and baserunning, while Micah Hoffpauir has a 1.122 OPS since being recalled. Godenot has returned as well for the final month with a 1.071 OPS in 8 games (6/14 at the plate).

Parachat actually had a small crowd last night, so stop on by.

Comments

No score in Jacksonville in Double A Finals...top of the 5th.

Papelbon pitching for Smokies. Guyer reached on an error in 4th with 0 outs, Adduci failed at a sac bunt and M. Smith doubled, but Guyer was thrown at home.

Harden pitching badly. 5-0 Brewers in the top of the third. Under any rosy scenario, we would likely be talking about the Cubs losing 3-4 games the rest of the season to get in the playoffs. Looks like one will be tonight.

boneheads? per Trib/Sullivan Milton Bradley and Geovany Soto weren't into the game either. Soto violated Rule 7.05 by using his mask to try to pick up a ball that got away from him, allowing a baserunner to advance. "I don't think Soto knew the rule," Piniella said with a laugh. "I'll be honest with you. We told him he couldn't use his helmet either, just to make sure." Later in the inning, Soto tagged out a runner at home on a bases-loaded grounder instead of just stepping on the plate for a force. Bradley looked so disinterested during his second-inning strikeout that Piniella yanked him after the third. Piniella downplayed it afterward, saying it was only a double-switch.

So is the Bradley hot streak over? A little less than a week is all we get? Damn what a bummer. Despite all of Bradleys walks and his relative health he is gonna struggle to out perform Soriano who played on one knee most of the year and will be on the DL to finish out the last month. I will use PA for Rob.... Bradley 470 PA, .256 BA, 61 runs, 17 2b, 12 HR, 40 RBI Soriano 522 PA, .241 BA, 64 runs, 25 2b, 20 HR, 55 RBI Bradley should finish near Soriano in PA, but i don't think he has a shot in hell of beating out the one legged gimp in extra base hits or RBI. Soriano has had a shitty season, but please tell me what kind of season is worse than shitty when your under performing a guy on the DL and who played on one leg when you were considered healthy most of the year?

more Paul Sullivan/Trib douchbaggery...after hasseling Z about the no trade he's apparently backing off because it was about stoopid "sources" (probably wrongway phil rogers): A day after falling apart on the mound and leaving a postgame news conference in a huff, Zambrano was able to sit back and laugh about his situation. He knows he has the hammer with a full no-trade clause in his contract, and sources indicated Wednesday he has no intention on waiving it this off-season.

I'm no sabermetrics guru but I thought I could pretend like I understand these things... Since Bradley was brought in to balance our righty hitters in the 3/4/5 spot (DLee-ARam), he's obviously failed miserably. So with this initial premise I thought I'd just look at BA/RISP. With his higher walk rate batting 2nd made sense until the last fall off the table slump. Now all we can hope for is a reset of his 2010. using hardball times data, looks like Bradley is having a slightly worse and very miserable season (compared to Soriano's also miserable season). I realize RISP is probably enhanced if your top of the order guys are getting on and the hitter is in the 3/4/5 slot. Soriano in 2008 was probably helped by the bottom of the order getting on leading to his career high in this stat. I don't know what their "clutch" stat is but on a scale of -10 to +15 it's interesting to see how it correlates with BA/RISP. So I added some comps. if you compare BA/RISP. ARam is having a career year on that stat...too bad it's a diminished sample size. http://www.hardballtimes.com/thtstats/main/player/369/milton-bradley Bradley 2009 BA/RISP .205 (career season high .297, 2006 w Oak) Clutch -5.5 (career low -7.5, 2004 w Dodgers) Soriano 2009 BA/RISP .216 (career season high .276, 2008) Clutch 0.7 (career low -6.8, 2005 w Texas) Aram 2009 BA/RISP .423 (career high) Clutch +7.0 (career high) DLee 2009 BA/RISP .313 (career high .364, 2007) Clutch -3.0 (career low -3.8, 2005 and high +4.8, 2007) Pujols 2009 BA/RISP .364 (career high .397, 2006 Clutch 0.2 (career low -2.5, 2007 and career high 13.7, 2006)

[ ]

In reply to by Cubster

you're right, you're no sabermetrician. :)

to be an effective baseball player, there's basically 4 things I look at...

you get on-base, you drive in runs, you hit for power, you can play defense...if you want to add a 5th, you can add baserunning and speed, but it's very much the 5th wheel...

1. you get on-base

it's pretty easy, look at OBP

.376 vs .303 (Bradley vs. Soriano)

.371 vs. .326 for their careers

2. you drive in runs

yeah, there's RBI's, they don't tell a good story. They don't tell you about the RBI opportunities. I've preached this for a long time but BP and the game logs of individual players on Baseball Reference do.

Bradley: 288 Runners have been on-base (ROB) when he's come up, he's driven in 28 of them for a woeful 9.7%

Soriano: 276 ROB, 35 driven in (this excludes driving themselves in) for an also woeful 12.7% 

Generally about 15-16% is considered average and only Ramirez and Lee are above that this year for the Cubs. The only thing about driving in runs and hitting with runners on, is that is has shown to fluctuate greatly from season to season.

Bradley's ROB% from 2008 in descending order (2007, then 2006 and so forth): 15.6, 16, 14, 12.9, 12.8, 17.6, 12

Soriano's ROB%:  16.4, 13, 13.9, 16, 16.2, 14.1, 17.7

3. you hit for power

Bradley: 12 HR's, 30 XBH's in 2009 (terrible)

Soriano: 20 HR's, 46 XBH's in 2009 (about the only decent thing from him all season)

Soriano obviously has the career advantage as well...

4: you play defense

I think Soriano has been a disaster this season and certainly taken a step back from some decent years he had before that, mostly thanks to his arm. Left field tends to be the place you sacrifice defense so comparing him to his peers versus Bradley's right field and center field peers is hardly ideal. Nonetheless...

Soriano BP rate2 (100 is average): 114 for his career in LF, 102 in 2009 (that's a tough one to swallow)

Bradley BP rate2: 104 for his career in RF, 107 in 2009

Soriano UZR/150: 5.4 for his career in LF, -13.1 in 2009, 5.2 in 2008, 22.4 in 2007

Bradley UZR/150: 7.8 for his career in RF, 6.6 in CF, - 2.3 in 2009, 14.2 in 2006

There's some decent cumulative stats that try to sum up a player into one stat. WAR and WARP are the most prominent.

Bradley: 1.3 WAR in 2009, 2.4 WARP

Soriano: -0.8 WAR in 2009,  0.8 WARP

Salary: $16M for Soriano this year, $7M for Bradley

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.