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

Gone to the Eternal Confines: 2008 Cub Obits

Update: Loyal TCR reader Jacos points out my glaring omission of Bobby Murcer from the obit list. I think I scooted right past his name on the list of 2008 baseball deaths because I will always think of him as a New York Yankee despite his time with the Cubs and Giants, just like I will always think of Billy Williams as a Cub, despite his time with the Athletics. For the record, Murcer was acquired in trade from San Francisco for Bill Madlock in 1977 then traded back to the Yankees in June of 1979. In his two and a half years with the Cubs, Murcer had a couple of okay seasons--including 27 HR and 89 RBI in '77.


 

In the year just past, eight more men with various ties to our beloved Cubs left this world without seeing a World Series championship find its way to the North Side.

R.I.P. to you all, gentlemen...

 

John Buzhardt (Died 6/15/08 at age 71 in Prosperity, South Carolina)

A right-hander signed by the Cubs as an amateur in 1954, Buzhardt pitched for the team in September of 1958 and all of 1959. In his two seasons in Cubbie blue, Buzhardt went 7-5, bouncing between starting and relief roles. The highlight of his Cub career was in June of '59, when Buzhardt threw a complete game, one-hit shutout at the Phillies. In addition to pitching for the Cubs, Buzhardt played for the Phillies, White Sox, Orioles, and Astros, ending his career in 1968 with a record of 71-96.

 

Don Cardwell (Died 1/14/08 at age 72 in Winston-Salem, North Carolina)

Two days after being traded to the Cubs by the Phillies in 1960, Cardwell no-hit the Cardinals at Wrigley Field. If you haven't seen the grainy black & white footage from the WGN broadcast that day, you should.

Cardwell won a career-high 15 games for the Cubs in 1961. Following the '62 season, he was traded to the Cardinals, who, a month later, traded him to the Pirates. By 1967, Cardwell was a Met, and though he was bumped from the post-season rotation during the Mets' run to a World Championship in the God-forsaken '69 season, he was a big contributor during the team's stretch run, going 4-0 from mid-August through mid-September while yielding just five runs in 45 innings.


Don Eaddy (Died 7/9/08 at age 74 in Laconia, New Hampshire)

A multi-sport star in college, Eaddy was signed by the Cubs out of the University of Michigan in 1955, when college men weren't all that common in professional baseball, and college men who happened to be African-Americans were even less common on the Major League scene.

Eaddy's Cub career--and his time as a big leaguer--consisted of one season, 1959, when he appeared in 15 games, almost exclusively as a pinch-runner. In fact, he only had one at-bat and played one inning in the field for the Cubs, in the same game, on 8/21/59 against the Reds. Eaddy struck out in his one at-bat and made an error in the field, thus validating the Cubs' decision to use him almost exclusively as a pinch-runner.

 

Kevin Foster (Died 10/11/08 at age 39 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)

Kevin Foster experienced both the honor of playing Major League baseball and the joy of doing it for the team he had lived and died with as a kid.

The former Evanston High School star was originally drafted in 1987 by the Expos as an infielder. He was converted to a pitcher in '91 and by '93, he was pitching in the Majors for Philadelphia. The Cubs acquired Foster from the Phillies in 1994, in exchange for Shawn Boskie.

In 1995, Foster's first full year in the bigs, he went 12-11. In 1997, he enjoyed the distinction (if that's the word for it) of earning the Cubs' first victory after the team had dropped its first 14 games of the season.

Arm injuries shortened Foster's career and he last pitched professionally for the Rangers, though only briefly, in 2001.

Foster, who died from renal cell carcinoma, seems to have been a first-class guy, as these remembrances by people who knew him attest. (Hard to know if the note from Jim Riggelman really was from Foster's former Cub manager, but I would like to think so.)

 

Geremi (aka Jeremy, Jeremi) Gonzalez (Died 5/25/08 at age 33 in Punta Palma, Zulia, Venezuela)

Even by baseball standards, Gonzalez was a young man when he was killed by a lightning strike while on a beach in his native Venezuela.

Gonzalez won 11 games for the Cubs as a rookie in 1997 and 7 more games in '98, before injuries kept him out of the Majors until 2003, when he reappeared as a starter for Lou Piniella's Tampa Bay Devil Rays. On June 3rd of that year, Gonzalez was pitching in Wrigley Field for the Rays against the Cubs, when Sammy Sosa's bat exploded and all of that unsightly cork was exposed.

Said Piniella of Gonzalez, who was known as "Jeremy" while a Cub and then began to adhere to the Spanish spelling of his name later in his career:

"He was a nice young man...a competitive kid, really good natured...I liked him a lot."

 

Jerome Holtzman (Died 7/25/08 at age 82 in Evanston)

You'll find a brief audio recap of Holtzman's more than 50-year career as a Chicago sportswriter and official MLB historian at the NPR Web site right here. Also Bruce Miles of the Daily Herald offered a personal reminiscence at the time of Holtzman's death.

 

Al Montreuil (Died 1/18/08 at age 64 in New Orleans)

Montreuil was signed as an amateur free agent by the Red Sox in 1963, was acquired by the Cubs organization prior to the 1969 season, and finally made his Major League debut late in 1972, when the Cubs needed a warm body to replace injured second baseman Glenn Beckert and the usual backup, veteran Paul Popovich, who was also hurt. (The Cubs were so desperate that before Montreuil got the call-up, Ron Santo was actually pressed into some duty at second base.) In 11 September at-bats for the Cubs, Montreuil produced just one hit, a single off the Padres' Bill Greif in Montreuil's first game on September 1st.

 

Lou Stringer (Died 10/19/08 at age 91 in Lake Forest, California)

Stringer, whose three seasons as a Cub second baseman were interrupted by his service in the Air Force during World War II, owed his place in the Cubs starting lineup to one of the worst trades in team history.

In May, 1941, as the story goes, Dodgers chief exec Larry MacPhail (Andy's granpda) got Cubs GM Jim Gallagher and Cubs manager Jimmie Wilson in a New York hotel room and after five and a half hours of "conferencing" over a variety of alcoholic beverages, the three emerged to announce the trade of eventual Hall of Famer Billy Herman from the Cubs to the Dodgers for two journeymen and $35,000.

The trade opened a job for Stringer, who, over the course of the '41, '42, and '46 seasons, appeared in 346 games for the Cubs, hitting .246, .236, and .244. Herman, meanwhile, had several more productive seasons and two All-Star appearances for Brooklyn before his playing career ended in 1947.

Comments

I know this an obvious question, but, me being old and fucking blue as hell, what about the Cubs themselves? Ah, see? They're never dead in our eyes, are they? Shit. I should write a book about it. I've written books about other stuff (yes, published ones). Why not about Cubs fans and their eternal joy with a team that always sucks?

ROOM FOR ONE MORE: RHP Dave Smith (12-17-08).

Smith is best-remembered for having blown the 9th inning save in the infamous Game from Cubbie Hell at Pittsburgh in 1991, the one where the Cubs somehow found a way to blow a five-run lead in the bottom of the 11th inning, which turned out to be the largest blown extra-inning lead in MLB history.  

felix pie is part of the cubs caravan. gathright and gregg, too.

Vizcaino is owed $3.5m for 2009 and a $4m option in 2010 with a $500k buyout. So, assuming it's a stright-up deal and the Cubs exercise the 2010 buy-out, the Cubs eat nearly $6m of Marquis' deal. He would certainly provide the veteran bullpen presence that they had been seeking. As Harry would say, he's modeled a few uniforms...

http://rays.scout.com/a.z?s=322&p=2&c=824871&RequestedURL=http%3a%2f%2f… Four different Cubs scouts got reads on Patton this past season. Some believed the pitch, which registered anywhere from 79 to 84 mph, was more of a hard curve while others lauded it as a slider. In any case, the scouts were impressed. “The way the breaking ball is today, much like a couple of guys in our system now with their breaking balls, some are calling it a curve, some are calling it a slider,” said Wilken. “That’s a product of amateur ball and guys having an in-between (arm) slot where it’s more of a slurve, but at times resembles a power curveball. and “Everyone had a plus breaking ball on this guy for the future, so does it happen this year? In the Rule Five, it seems it’s always the following year. Clubs identify those guys and it seems to happen one year later. That’s because most organizations don’t think it’s going to happen in that year period.” 91-94 mph fastball, third pitch is a change...

is there a link or was it on ESPN News? Sportscenter?

Recent comments

  • 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.

  • crunch (view)

    dbacks are signing j.montgomery to a 1/25m with a vesting 20m player option.

    i dunno when the ink officially dries, but i believe if he signs once the season begins he can't be offered a QO...and i'm not sure if that thing with SD/LAD in korea was the season beginning, either.

  • crunch (view)

    sut says imanaga getting the home opener at wrigley (game 4 of the season).

  • crunch (view)

    cubs rolling out the who's who of "who the hell is this guy?" in the last spring game.

  • videographer (view)

    AZ Phil, speaking of Jordan Wicks having better command when he tires a bit, I remember reading about Dennis Lamp 40 years ago and his sinker that was better after 3 or 4 innings when he would tire a bit and get more sink with a little less speed on the pitch.  The key for Lamp was getting to the 4th inning.