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

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

  • crunch (view)

    yeah, for me this isn't about who's better at 3rd.  it's madrigal, period.  for me it's about who's not hitting in the lineup because madrigal is in the lineup.

    occasional play at 3rd for madrigal, okay.  going with the steele/ground-ball matchup...meh, but okay, whatever.

    seeing madrigal get significant starting time...no thanks.

  • 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.