Cubs MLB Roster

Cubs Organizational Depth Chart
40-Man Roster Info

40 players are on the MLB RESERVE LIST (roster is full) 

42 players are at MLB Spring Training 

31 players on MLB RESERVE LIST are ACTIVE at MLB Spring Training, and nine players are on OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT to minors. 
11 players are MLB Spring Training NON-ROSTER INVITEES (NRI) 

Last updated 3-17-2024
 
* bats or throws left
# bats both

PITCHERS: 17
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Jose Cuas
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Caleb Kilian
Mark Leiter Jr
* Luke Little
Julian Merryweather
Hector Neris 
Daniel Palencia
* Drew Smyly
* Justin Steele
Jameson Taillon
Hayden Wesneski 
* Jordan Wicks

NRI PITCHERS: 5 
Colten Brewer 
Carl Edwards Jr 
* Edwin Escobar 
* Richard Lovelady 
* Thomas Pannone 

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

NRI CATCHERS: 2  
Jorge Alfaro 
Joe Hudson 

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

NRI INFIELDERS: 3 
David Bote 
Garrett Cooper
* Dominic Smith

OUTFIELDERS: 5
* Cody Bellinger 
Alexander Canario
# Ian Happ
Seiya Suzuki
* Mike Tauchman 

NRI OUTFIELDERS: 1 
* David Peralta

OPTIONED:
Kevin Alcantara, OF 
Michael Arias, P 
Ben Brown, RHP 
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF 
Brennen Davis, OF 
Porter Hodge, RHP 
* Matt Mervis, 1B 
Keegan Thompson, P 
Luis Vazquez, INF 

 



Minor League Rosters
Rule 5 Draft 
Minor League Free-Agents

Sunday Funnies. Oh wait it's the Cubs. Make that Sunday Saddies.

Click to see gif.Ouch.
Joe Mather had a rotten night with the glove.
I mean - plenty of effort, right?
But all Mather will remember is Matt Kemp saying he "had a little help" with his game-winning home run that bounced off Mather's glove like a mini-trampoline and then went over the fence.
Later, Mather would make another grand effort, diving at a line drive (can't remember who hit it) and having the ball stick for about .005 of a second, but then roll out.
Mather threw to second while sitting, then continued to sit there, looking at the grass and contemplating life as a Cub.

Chris Volstad pitched well enough to win. 
That's actually a very encouraging thing to say.
All odds against him as he was up against Klayton Kershaw, he pretty much shut the Dodgers down for 7 innings. 
Volstad is an enormous man, and he definitely has skills so you just hope he can figure out how to pitch.
More than any year ever, wins don't really mean a thing.
2012 is more like a big long spring training and after each game I half expect the pitchers to say something like "I was working on my cutter today".
It would be nice for Volstad's head to get a win since he hasn't had one forever.
But, you know... no cigar. 

Comments

I have no idea the real reason for bringing Jackson and Vitters up now instead of waiting, but it's not a bad idea to have a group of young players we hope will be our core all playing together from early on and learning together.

"speed is a wonderful thing, len." - bob a day game in the dodger stadium OF is deceptively harder than it seems...especially with a ball hit right at you in CF...but yeah, speed is a wonderful thing so far for brett jackson. there's been a couple of interesting routes.

Baez struggles in initial adjustment to Daytona...0 for 8 with 5 K. Likely just an adjustment time....I doubt he struggles significantly the rest of the way. But these type of hurdles are good, IMO, for players like Baez, as the forced adjustment and confronting new challenges will make him better in the long run.

If is just so perfectly Cub that in a year which very well might go down as losses of historic proportions, they could get "beat out" by more than one team. How can more than ONE team suck this badly in the highest-professional level of the sport we love? And, couple in the whole Garza mess... I don't know if HoyStein realize that they have been Cubbed, but they certainly cannot be used to this utter shit-storm they have chosen to dive into.

[ ]

In reply to by The E-Man

They will have to earn their salaries, that's for sure. I don't really see the Garza situation as pure Cubbery. It's just yet another pitcher getting hurt. It really seems to me that pitchers who don't get hurt are the rarity these days. I was listening to John Schmoltz on the radio the other day and he attributes the injury plague to the way minor league pitchers are trained, or, in his view, NOT trained to be starting pitchers, and how this extends into the majors. His contention is that in the minors they aren't forced to go very long and don't build up the durability they once had. I really don't know if that is the case or not, since I don't have any empirical evidence either way, it's just one theory. He also contends they don't get trained on how to get out of trouble. If they get into the sixth inning and get a couple men on base and maybe a run or two in, the manager automatically calls the pen. I think on a good team with good bullpen depth that is a good thing, because there are some really good specialists and relievers out there. But in the minors, Schmoltz seems to believe that starters should be extended deeper into games. On the Cubs, I wouldn't mind seeing guys get stretched out a bit to get past a rough inning. Of course, in some cases (see Volstad, Chris) sometimes you look up one minute and see the score is 0-0, then look up a minute later and it's 6-0. I think they've done that some with Schamargia, so maybe that's the thinking here, too. I think Germano got a quick hook the other night if my memory serves, but he could be on a bit of a pitch count. Anyway, overall, yes, they probably knew what they were getting into when they signed up for this. If Theo can overcome Cubbery, he will have overcome quite a challenge in his line of work, that's for damn sure.

Ask BA with a question on Loosen & McNutt. Here's part of response: Loosen is a prospect in the sense that he has a chance to get to the big leagues, but he's not a top prospect. The 6-foot-2, 205-pounder works mostly with an average fastball and he can run it up to 94 mph on occasion. His curveball is better than his slider, though both are effective, while his changeup lacks consistency. He throws a decent amount of strikes but his control and command still need improvement. At 23, Loosen is old for his level and needs to get tested by more advanced hitters. He projects more as a middle reliever than a starter, and if we slapped a BA grade on him, it would be 45/High. As for McNutt, whom we ranked as Chicago's best pitching prospect entering the season, he has hit a wall. Though he flashed a pair of plus-plus pitches and showed promise as a potential No. 2 starter at two Class A stops in 2010, he hasn't been the same guy since. Now relegated to the bullpen during his third stint in Double-A, he just hasn't shown the same stuff with any consistency. He no longer misses many bats and his command, never his strong suit, has backslid as well. He now looks like a definite reliever, and he's going to have to snap out of his funk to get a big league opportunity. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/ask-ba/2012/2613846.html

[ ]

In reply to by QuietMan

McNutt hit a wall in 2010, when he had 15 innings in AA prior to a couple of forgettable playoff starts. I wish he was Tampa's problem. Of course I didn't complain at the time, so this is not any sort of "I told you so"--but when the Cubs yielded Chris Archer to Tampa in the Garza deal, Archer had been effective through 70 innings in AA. The word at the time of the trade was that Tampa would have taken McNutt instead of Archer. Archer would be in the Cub rotation today, whereas McNutt seems closer to Daytona than Iowa. My takeaway is that the Southern League is a better test of talent than the FSL--that's why they call it the high minors--and that internet scouts, pound for pound, generate a lot of hype. I wonder if Sickels is going to give McNutt another mulligan this year.

Recent comments

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    That’s a fantastic deal for SF

  • crunch (view)

    SF snags b.snell...2/62m

  • Cubster (view)

    AZ Phil: THAT is an awesome report worth multiple thanks. I’m sure it will be worth reposting in an “I told you so” in about 2-3 years.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    The actual deadline to select a post-2023 Article XX-B MLB free agent signed to 2024 minor league contract (Cooper, Edwards, and Peralta) to the MLB 40-man roster is not MLB Opening Day, it is 12 PM (Eastern) this coming Sunday (3/24). 

    However, the Cubs could notify the player prior to the deadline that the player is not going to get added to the 40 on Sunday, which would allow the player to opt out early. Otherwise the player can opt out anytime after the Sunday deadline (if he was not added to the 40 by that time). 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Today is an off day for both the Cubs MLB players and the Cubs minor league players.  

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    For those of you keeping track, so far nine players have been called up to Mesa from the Cubs Dominican Academy for Minor League Camp and they will be playing in the ACL in 2024: 

    * bats or throws left 

    Angel Cepeda, INF 
    * Miguel Cruz, P
    Yidel Diaz, C 
    * Albert Gutierrez, 1B
    Fraiman Marte, P  
    Francis Reynoso, P (ex-1B) 
    Derniche Valdez, INF 
    Edward Vargas, OF 
    Jeral Vizcaino, P 

    And once again, despite what you might read at Baseball Reference and at milb.com, Albert Gutierrez is absolutely positively a left-handed hitter (only), NOT a right-handed hitter.

    Probably not too surprisingly, D. Valdez was the Cubs #1 prospect in the DSL last season, Cepeda was the DSL Cubs best all-around SS prospect not named Derniche Valdez, Gutierrez was the DSL Cubs top power hitting prospect not named Derniche Valdez, E. Vargas was the DSL Cubs top outfield prospect (and Cepeda and E. Vargas were also the DSL Cubs top two hitting prospects), Y. Diaz was the DSL Cubs top catching prospect, and M. Cruz was the DSL Cubs top pitching prospect. 

    F. Marte (ex-STL) and J. Vizcaino (ex-MIL) are older pitchers (both are 22) who were signed by the Cubs after being released by other organizations and then had really good years working out of the bullpen for the Cubs in the DSL last season. 

    The elephant in the room is 21-year old Francis Reynoso, a big dude (6'5) who was a position player (1B) at the Cardinals Dominican Academy for a couple of years, then was released by STL in 2022, and then signed by the Cubs and converted to a RHP at the Cubs Dominican Academy (and he projects as a high-velo "high-leverage" RP in the states). He had a monster year for the DSL Cubs last season (his first year as a pitcher). 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    DJL: The only players who definitely have opt outs are Cooper, Edwards, and Peralta (Opening Day, 5/1, and 6/1), and that's because they are post-2023 Article XX-B MLB free agents who signed 2024 minor league contracts and (by rule) they get those opt outs automatically. 

    Otherwise, any player signed to a 2024 minor league contract - MIGHT or - MIGHT NOT - have an opt out in their contract, but it is an individual thing, and if there are contractual opt outs the opt out(s) might not necessarily be Opening Day. It could be 5/1, or 6/1, or 7/1 (TBD).

    Because of their extensive pro experience, the players who most-likely have contractual opt outs are Alfaro, Escobar, and D. Smith, but (again), not necessarily Opening Day. 

    Also, just because a player has the right to opt out doesn't mean he will. 

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    I love the idea that Madrigal heads to Iowa in case Morel can’t handle third.

    The one point that intrigues me here is Cooper over Smith. I feel like the Cubs really like Smith and don’t want to lose him. Could be wrong. He def seems like an opt out if he misses the opening day roster

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Childersb3: Both Madrigal and Wisdom can be optioned without any restriction. Their consent is not required. 

    They both can be outrighted without restriction, too (presuming the player is not claimed off waivers), but if outrighted they can choose to elect free agency (immediately, or deferred until after the end of the MLB season).

    If the player is outrighted and elects free-agency immediately he forfeits what remains of his salary.

    If he accepts the assignment and defers free agency until after the conclusion of the season, he continues to get his salary, and he could be added back to the 40 anytime prior to becoming a free-agent (club option). 

  • Childersb3 (view)

    Phil, 
    Madrigal and Wisdom can or cannot refuse being optioned to the Minors?
    If they can refuse it, wouldn't they elect to leave the Cubs org?