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

Bad Contracts, Milton Bradley and Other Cub Related Links

- Nick Steiner takes a look at Milton Bradley using Pitch F/X data and comes away impressed.

The fact that Bradley has such a bad year - and it wasn't even that bad - can be placed solely on a huge drop in ISO from his previously established norms. His plate discipline and contact skills were just as good as they were in 08 and the year before that, and there is no evidence that the drop in ISO is anything "real". Despite the personality problems, teams are apparently lining up to try and steal Bradley away from Jim Hendry because he is still a very good player.

You'll make no friends around here Mr. Steiner with that sort of reasoned analysis.

- Speaking of Bradley, he makes MLBTR's list of bad contracts along with Soriano and Aaron Miles. All the hype to date has been that the Cubs will have to take on one of those (or something similar) to move Bradley.

- Bruce Miles says the Cubs should pass on Gary Matthews Jr. and responds to my inquiry in the comments that there are indeed clubs interested in Bradley.

- Bruce Levine concurs with Chris DeLuca that a payroll around $140M for 2010 should be expected and save up for another ticket price increase. He also says the Cubs are in talks with "Tampa, Toronto and three or four other clubs with players with big contracts that they would like to move."

- Dave Cameron at Fangraphs is thinking about bad contracts as well and suggests a ratings bonanza would follow a GM summit where each team brought one bad contract and threw them into a pile. Then each team picks one from the pile and has to go home with it in what he has dubbed Bad Contract White Elephant.

- This one isn't so much Cub-centric from Geoff Young, but I thought an interesting look at how K/9 rates have increased over time and then contextualizing them for each era.

So, Lincecum had a much higher strikeout rate (by 1.71) in 2009 than Gooden did in 1985. But taking context into account, we see that the entire league had a much higher strikeout rate (by 1.53) in 2009 than in 1985. In today's environment, Gooden's 8.72 K/9 from 1985 would translate to 11.15 (i.e., 8.72/5.50*7.03), which looks more impressive and gives us a more proper appreciation of his accomplishments.

- You can vote for the 2009 This Year in Baseball awards at MLB.com. Carlos Marmol is up for set-up man of the year (I guess), so is Michael Wuertz (whoops). Milton Bradley forgetting how many outs is up in the Oddity category along with Mr. T's 7th Inning Stretch which I don't recall and after watching, I'm not sure what was that odd about it other than another pseudeo-celeb butchering the lyrics. A little surprised not to see Randy Wells in the Rookie category(Casey McGehee is though, another whoops) or Derrek Lee in the hitter category but neither would have won anyway. You'll be shocked to learn Hendry and Lou didn't get nominations either.

- A Q&A with Cubs Minor League Player of the Year Kyler Burke at Inside the Ivy (Subscription required)

Really the biggest thing was confidence; I got my confidence back and tweaked a few things here and there with my swing. I worked a lot on my mental approach and just went out, relaxed and had a good time and stayed consistent throughout the whole year. For me, I think the mental part was huge. There are guys that can play with the talent but you have to figure out for yourself how to take failure and also success. You can’t get too high or too low, and that’s a big thing. It’s nothing you can really do to get there; it just kind of has to happen. For me, I got a lot of confidence back this year and things went smoothly.

Burke also says he tweaked his batting stance a bit at the beginning of the year.

- For all I know, this Cubs minor league blog has been around forever, but it's new to me - Wrigley Bound.

- George Castle had an article earlier this month saying that Geovany Soto is determined to get back in shape and will be teaming up with workout fiend Ryan Dempster to do so...the article and comments also have some good things to say about Koyie Hill. Castle more recently discussed potential Wrigley Field renovations and seems to be in favor of rebuilding the entire grandstand area.

- A blast from the past as Sharapova's Thigh looks at the most undeserving Starting LIneup action figures...four Cubs make the list including the acceptable Jerome Walton, Rick WIlkins and Damon Berryhill. A Luis Salazar action figure though is a head scratcher. Supposedly there's a Marvell Wynne one as well in 1989, but not sure if that's as a Cub or Padre.

- Sam Zell says goodbye.

"I think the team should be owned by somebody who is local, somebody who is really passionate about baseball," Zell said. "I happen to be local. I'm not passionate about baseball, so I wish them all the best of luck. And maybe we'll break the 101-year curse." 

- I obviously don't get the print versions of the Chicago newspapers, so apparently the Tribune debuted a new layout recently. One of the reasons is that they've fallen behind the Sun-Times in sports coverage, which is hard for me to fathom.  More importantly, Steve Rosenbloom is the grand plan to overtake them?

- This is horrible...cubs.com is having a vote for the best single season by position but only lists the standard set of BA, HR, R, RBI and SB. At the very least you have to include a column for OBP and I sure would have at least liked to have seen OPS or OPS+. They even put Sosa's 1998 up there instead of his 2001 season. I think I'll have to examine that list in a future post with a more discerning eye.

- Cubs convention tickets go on sale on November 4th and the convention will take place January 15-17.

Comments

"His plate discipline and contact skills were just as good as they were in 08 and the year before that" what crack are they smoking? bradley spent off/on the entire season swinging VERY noticeably (even to a novice) on top of a lot of stuff. it's one thing to smack a grounder down the lines or the middle, but he took stuff he'd drive and turned it into worm killing grounders. that's a weird ass conclusion to draw that his contact skills were just as good when he was unbalanced for a significant period of time...it's not like it was just a few weeks or a month or 2 in one single period. that's just...retarded. he had the plate discipline, but his contact was far from good and nearly incomparable to what he did in 08.

The 1989 Wynne is a Padre. But how the 1989 Cubs Curtis Wilkerson (which I still have) did not make the list is beyond me. The earlier years have far more "bad" players because they actually did a starting lineup (thus their name) with 9 players for every team. In later years, Kenner just made figures for good players - although even then their are some misses. As you can imagine, predicting a team's starting lineup in the winter before the season started was difficult. In fact, I believe they had Wilkerson pegged to be a Cubs starting outfielder in 1989, not of course predicting the rise of Walton and Smith. The 1989 Starting Lineup Cubs were: Sutcliffe Berryhill Grace Sandberg Dunston Law Dawson Webster Wilkerson

The bad contract thing is not a bad idea. But I would modify it a little. All teams get involved and are slotted by previous year's payroll from smallest to largest. The first team (Florida) could either pass a contract on to the next team or pass. Then that next team either passes that contract, a different contract or passes again, and so on until the Yankees get stuck with another bad deal.

I'm less and less convinced that the Cubs will be able to move Bradley, even for a bad contract. With a Wells or a Burrell, you know what you're getting. They're not volatile, like our guy. Nobody wants to get tethered to a guy for two years whom they may have to release or suspend on any given day. So I think Bradley will be a Cub for one more year, at least. Careful what you wish for, Neal. With Joshua gone and Jaramillo on board, there is already a welcoming committee. Lou won't like it, of course, but at this point I suspect that Lou can take a hike as far as Hendry is concerned. As far as GMs returning Hendry's calls about Bradley, it's not surprising that they're interested in talking to him at times like these, when he's painted himself into a corner. "Give us Castro or Vitters, and we'll take Bradley off your hands and pay most of his salary." Then they can just throw Bradley in the trash whenever they feel like it.

[ ]

In reply to by The Real Neal

there's an extremely unfair assumption that batting/pitching leaders are clubhouse leaders. griffey jr. was never one in SEA and he wasn't one in CIN. that clubhouse turned into pure venom over the years culminating in dave miley having his ass handed to him and manhandled by guys like adam dunn who had about as much respect for him and his role on the club as rkelly does for a 14 year old girl. that said, some people aren't clubhouse leaders even though their numbers and history lead clubs to wins. dero's function for the cubs last season with the media and doing things like taking nearly all the media pressure off DLee by feeding reporters a story and 1/2 every time he opened his mouth might have been just as important as what he did with a bat...well, not that important, but dero-the-media-go-to-guy wasn't replaced by anyone in that lockerroom.

http://m.torontosun.com/11588066.1 Toronto Sun on Vernon Wells for Bradley, early but deal has legs. Also a mention in Rotoworld: "It's early on, but we think this one has some legs," said one Cubs official. "But they aren't the only team we are talking with." The Cubs' idea is to split the difference on Wells' $107 million over six years and Bradley's $21 million the next two years, with each team absorbing $43 million. It would take a lot of work to make a deal happen, but it may be the only way Toronto can wiggle out of the Wells contract.

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.