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 vs Cardinals rivalry. Old Photos.

 

I found some old photos in a box.

Crappy, from an old point and shoot in the pre-digital days.

I asked a buddy if he thought that was crazy Mitch Williams on the mound for the Cubs, he said he thought it was Rod Beck.

And then I simply had to find out what the shots were from.

I scanned 'em at high resolution and you know what? Fuzzy shots scanned at high resolution still look pretty fuzzy. But blown way up you'll see two #30's (starting pitchers) in the shot of the scoreboard. That would be Geremi Gonzalez and Todd Stottlmyre. 

The batters, of course you'll remember Cardinal  #25 and Cub #21.

I found out that these are from (I'm 99.9% certain) May 1, 1998, when Sammy and McGwire were in the process of The Great Home Run Battle. Back when players were doing evil black magic in the locker rooms with needles.

But let's forget that stuff for a minute and look at these photos.

Wrigley Field back in a far more innocent time, seats nowhere near filled, Torco sign, cigarette smoking Mark Grace at first, and that IS Rod Beck throwing the ball for the Cubs. They won 6-5.

This was the year Harry died - he passed away just a couple months earlier. On Opening Day my brother and I sat in the front windows at Bernie's (which was still a pleasant old man bar) thinking we'd watch it there. But we ran across the street just before the game and got tickets at the will call window for face right down the 3rd base line about 20 rows up and watched a thousand black balloons fly into the sky in honor of Harry before the game started.

This was just 12 years ago. The photos look like they're from another time completely.

Lineups:

Cubs
Brant Brown cf
Mickey Morandini 2b
Sammy Sosa rf
Mark Grace 1b
Henry Rodriguez lf
Jeff Blauser ss
Tyler Houston c
Kevin Orie 3rd
Geremi Gonzalez p

Cardinals
Royce Clayton ss
Delino DeShields 2b
Mark McGwire 1b
Ray Lankford cf
Willie McGee lf
Gary Gaitti 3b 
John Mabry rf
Eli Marrero c
Todd Stottlemyre p

You can go to Baseball Almanac to see the actual box score.

Anyway,I don't remember this at all, but I guess we got to see a McGwire homer, Grace and McGee double, about 50 guys steal on Tyler Houston, and Rod Beck get the 9th save of his 51-save season. (If there is a heaven, I hope to have a couple beers with Rod some time in the future.) 

A couple months after these photos were taken the Cards would dump Gary Gaetti, the Cubs would pick him up and in a 2-month span he'd hit .320, slug .594, hit 8 homers and 27 RBIs, and be a big deal in helping the Cubs get to the playoffs.
I also liked Brant Brown - we all thought he was gonna be a star, but later this season he'd make his famous NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (that's Santo, of course) Error. 

The Cubs would win the wild card in a 1-game playoff vs. the Giants and go on to... get swept by the Braves in round one of the NLDS?

That's CRAZY!

Must be some kind of Cubs' theme or something.

Anyway, I hope you like the photos, and hope the Cubs contribute to the St. Louis Slide of 2010.

(click on the image for the full-size version)


 

You can view Tim Souers work on a daily basis at Cubby Blue.

Comments

Concerning the earlier comments about the under usage of Soto----I've wondered why when you have a catcher who contributes significantly to the offense, that the manager doesn't pull him after, say the 6th inning, on blowouts in either direction. It wouold be logical to assume that the backup catcher might be the defensive equal of the starter or he wouldn't be on the roster. You might have your best offense on the field for the deciding portion of say 150 games instead of 120-130.

This was just 12 years ago. The photos look like they're from another time completely. That's exactly what I was thinking. I know they've done a number of things to the park since then, but it looks almost minor league in those pics. Neat.

Recent comments

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    Yeah I am very disappointed Madrigal is starting. He has no business as a starter. He is AAA insurance, a back up at best. Sure his defense looks fine because he plays far enough in that his noodle arm isn’t totally exposed. It comes at the cost of 3B range.

    He’s garbage, and a team serious about winning would NOT have him starting opening day.

  • crunch (view)

    in other news, it took 3 PA before a.rizzo got his 1st HBP of the season.

  • Eric S (view)

    With two home runs (so far) and 5 rbi today … clearly Nick Martini is the straw that stirs the Reds drink 😳

  • crunch (view)

    madrigal at 3rd...morel at DH.

    making room for madrigal or/and masterboney to get a significant amount of ABs is a misuse of the roster.  if it needed to get taken care of this offseason, they had tons of time to figure that out.

    morel played almost exclusively at 3rd in winter ball and they had him almost exclusively there all spring when he wasn't DH'ing.

    madrigal doing a good job with the glove for a bit over 2 chances per game...is that worth more than what he brings with the bat 4-5 PA a game?  it's 2024 and we got glenn beckert 2.0 manning 3rd base.

    this is a tauchman or cooper DH situation based on bat, alone.  cooper is 3/7 with a double off eovaldi if you want to play the most successful matchup.

    anyway, i hope this is a temporary thing, not business as usual for the rest of the season.  it will be telling if morel is not used at 3rd when an extreme fly ball pitcher like imanaga is on the mound.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    There are two clear "logjams" in the Cubs minor league pipeline at the present time, namely AA outfielders (K. Alcantara, C. Franklin, Roederer, Pagan, Pinango, Beesley, and Nwogu) and Hi-A infielders (J. Rojas, P. Ramirez, Howard, R. Morel, Pertuz, R. Garcia, and Spence, although Morel has been getting a lot of reps in the outfield in addition to infield). So it is possible that you might see a trade involving one of the extra outfielders at AA and/or one of the extra infielders at Hi-A in the next few days. 

  • 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.