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

Not So Minor Matters, Week One

All's well in the world again. The first Sunday of April has come and gone, and baseball is back. Every day is a good day. And when the Cubs win, it's just that little bit better. A sweep of the Cardinals is six months of winter well rewarded. Matt Murton, Ronny Cedeno and Sean Marshall have graduated to the game's biggest stage this year, and all played their part over the weekend. Hoping to follow in their footsteps is young talent at Iowa, West Tennessee, Daytona and Peoria, where seasons got under way last Thursday. The Iowa Cubs (Pacific Coast League, Triple-A) and West Tennessee Diamond Jaxx (Southern League, Double-A) have both gotten off to promising 4-1 starts, topping their divisions early doors, while the Peoria Chiefs (Midwest League, Low-A) are at 3-2. Things haven't gone so well for the Daytona Cubs (Florida State League, High-A), who at 0-4 haven't yet won a game. Their game yesterday game was suspended due to a power outage with the Cubs batting in the top of the ninth, trailing 5-3 with a runner on first and one out, Jake Fox, Matt Craig and Alan Rick due up. It will be completed this evening before the regularly scheduled game. Crown Jewels Felix Pie is the organisation's top prospect, but if his ridiculous start to the season is anything to go by, he doesn't plan on hanging around the minor leagues for too much longer. He's 10-for-21 (.476), with a double, two triples and a grand-slam home run, six runs scored and eleven RBI, he's walked twice, struck out just twice, and has stolen three bases in three attempts. Naturally, he's also errorless in centre field. To put it another way, everything Iowa's leadoff-hitter has touched so far has turned to gold. Such performance is all the more impressive when you consider he's a 21-year old getting his first taste of Triple-A, hitter friendly league or not, all after losing half of last year to injury. Angel Guzman, Rich Hill and Jae-Kuk Ryu were all in competition for spots at the back end of the Cubs' rotation this Spring, but missed the cut. Angel Guzman, while throwing extremely hard, displayed a worrying lack of control during some of his Arizona outings, and looked, dare I say it, a little like Roberto Novoa out there at times. His debut at Iowa though went smoothly, as he allowed just one walk and two singles in five scoreless innings on Sunday, punching out six. Rich Hill meanwhile went six innings yesterday, a first inning two-out solo home run the only real blemish. A second run, unearned, scored on a double steal of second and home. Hill struck out six, walked none, allowed three hits in all, two of them singles. And Ryu, pitching on Opening Day against Renyel Pinto, threw five innings of one-run ball, allowing two singles, three doubles, five hits in all and a walk while striking out four. Pinto, for the record, walked seven in 3.2 innings. Mitre and Nolasco both cracked the Marlins' Opening Day roster. First base prospect Brian Dopirak, 22, struggled mightily at Daytona last year, yet received a promotion to Double-A anyway after a decent Spring Training. But after grounding out to third base, being called out on strikes and singling up the middle, Dopirak broke his foot on the bases on Opening Day and is expected to be out for at least six weeks. Right fielder Ryan Harvey was another that didn't have the best 2005, but he too's been pushed up a level to Daytona. After missing the first two games with a sprained knee, he's racked up four strikeouts and no walks in his first ten plate appearances. Huge power or not, if he's to make it to the big leagues, he needs to exhibit much better plate discipline. He is though still just 21. Best of the rest Eric Patterson spent all of last year terrorising the Midwest League, before receiving a late season double promotion to West Tennessee so that he could partake in their playoff push. He's beginning this season there again, and is off to a decent start. He's only 5-for-18 (.278), with five strikeouts, but he's walked three times, stolen three bags in as many attempts, and has two triples and a home run to his name already. Patterson's partner in domination at Peoria last year was Sean Gallagher, who's also started this year well. His first start saw him strikeout eight in six shutout innings, allowing just five hits and a walk. Meanwhile, Carlos Marmol, Randy Wells and returned Rule 5 draftee Juan Mateo had good opening starts for the Diamond Jaxx. The three combined to pitch 16 innings with a 1.69 ERA, allowing 7 hits, 1 home run, 3 walks and striking out 15. In the West Tenn bullpen, Lincoln Holdzkom, one of the prospects acquired for Todd Wellemeyer, struck out three in an inning and a third in his only outing, while at Iowa, David Aardsma has continued where he left off in Spring Training: four innings, six strikeouts and just one measly single allowed. Last year's draft class First rounder Mark Pawelek has stayed behind in extended Spring Training and will likely be assigned to Peoria within the next month or so. The Cubs aren't going to rush him, and realise that he needs to work on some mechanical issues. That leaves Mark Holliman (Daytona) and Donald Veal and Mike Billek (Peoria) as the top picks in action right now. Veal, a hard-throwing lefty that needs to work on his off-speed stuff, was wild in his Opening Day start, allowing six walks in 3.1 innings. He'll go again tonight. Billek meanwhile struckout six, walked one and allowed seven singles in a losing four-inning effort. Holliman though allowed just just two runners to reach (single, double) in five innings of one-run ball, striking out seven. Quick hits -- It was a good week for the Cubs' minor league arms, with just one glaring exception: Luke Hagerty, who last year put up the ugliest pitching line I've ever seen (6.2 IP, 14 H, 0 HR, 30 BB, 4 K, 31.05 ERA with 9 wild pitches) with short-season A-ball's Boise Hawks, has ended up in the Daytona rotation this year. His first start saw him issue 5 free passes and 1 wild pitch in 1.2 innings. Stick a fork in him. -- You can now watch Iowa Cubs home games on your computer. Through the month of April, the feed is absolutely free, and it costs a mere $10 to watch the rest of the year. Alternatively, for $20 you can get access to every Triple-A team. However, you'll have to put up with a one camera situated high behind home plate, and broadcasters that like discussing Kevin Costner movies. In other words, the service isn't great, but it's better than nothing. -- Also new for this season for the Iowa Cubs is the Gameday game tracker. You can follow them pitch-for-pitch then, via green, red and blue circles, and jump up and down when those "in play - run scoring play" words pop up on the screen with Felix Pie at bat. -- Free radio feeds for all minor league games are available as follows: Iowa Cubs (click on the feed of your choice), West Tenn Diamond Jaxx (click "Listen to NewsTalk 101.5 FM Online"), Daytona Cubs (click "Listen Live") and Peoria Chiefs (click "Listen Live"). From June onwards, when then Boise Hawks get their season underway, you'll be able to watch their home games and listen to all their games from this page. -- The Cubs recently released, amongst others, Russ Rohlicek, Jon Connelly, Olivo Astacio, Jason Wylie, Bo Flowers and Jason Szuminski.

Comments

From the Trib... "Meanwhile, it does not appear that manager Dusty Baker is close to signing a two-year extension, as general manager Jim Hendry did Saturday. Baker makes $4.6 million this year and wants a raise for 2007 and 2008." Isn't Dusty already one of the highest paid managers? What the hell has he done to deserve a raise?

Baker likely will seek a raise, based on the Cubsí revenue during his first three years. The three highest attendance totals in Cubs history were 2004 (3.17 million), ë05 (3.1 million) and ë03 (2.96 million).

Good to have you back, John. A side note: last night, Pieís game winning hit came off Nashvilleís starting SHORTSTOP, Chris Barnwell, who had been brought in to pitch to Augie Ojeda and then Pie in the bottom of the 11th. Felix would ordinarily have had a double or triple, since he hit it off the wall. But, with the bags loaded and no outs, it counted as only a single. Iím still not sold on Pie batting leadoff, however. Sure, itíll get him ABs, which are important at this stage. But Iíd rather see him in the 3rd, 5th, or 6th hole, where his skills would be more appropriate.

That's thirty walks in six point two innings, WPZ!

Is there some reason why re-signing Pierre and bringing Pie up when and if appropriate to take the right field job away from Jones isn't the obvious plan for the outfield? Jones is ok but I think he'd be fine off the bench. Yes it's a lot of dough for a 4th/5th outfielder, but that's what the big revenue is supposed to be for. Meanwhile, the idea that we'd give up the only bona fide leadoff hitter we've had for an entire season in what seems like forever seems like the height of lunacy.

I am surprised the Cubs havent let Hagerty go. Where the hell have you been, John? It's not like I post more than a few times a week, but oh well. The ICubs got Ben Sheets tonight. And apparently, the one that got away is Justin Jones in the Meinty deal. He went 5 innings with 7Ks 2 runs in his AA debut.

I also was watching for the costner movie talk last night. It's much better than nothing and I will only assume the camera work will get better as the season goes on. Do they have college kids doing the games? That would make the most sense to me since I bet they would do it for free.

Are you sure that horrendous pitching line doesn't have a typo? By my admittedly off-the-cuff calculations, that's a minimum of 160 pitches to get a line like that, and then only if every walk was on 4 pitches, every strikeout was 3, and every other hit or out was done on the first pitch. Though I suppose that doesn't account for double plays, but we're still talking of upwards of 150 pitches at the best, which I rather doubt was the case given those numbers. No wonder Hagerty's messed up. A game like that probably shredded his arm.

I am guessing that that line was a comprehensive line for the whole season in Boise. Wouldn't it suck to be the manager? Can you imagine having to watch this kid struggle, knowing that he has to stay in and get his reps? Scary...

That Hagerty line (30 BB, et al) was aggregate (14 games).

Even if it's 30 games it's kind of hard to imagine. By the 13th or 14th appearance I would've been tossing peanuts at the manager on the way back to the dugout after the insert. I'm right in the heart of Midwest League territory, so hopefully I can catch a few Peoria games this season! Thanks for the great work this site does. Down with Muskat!

Bo Flowers was released? Wasn't he the player received in the Farnsworth trade? What happened?

Did anyone else write Pete about his #5 today? Unbelieveable. I just wrote Pete.

Bo Flowers was part of the Farnsworth deal along with Scott Moore and Roberto Novoa; still got 2 of them.

Spellings of "organise, recognise, centre". Are you gay, British...or both?

Bo Flowers released: Another example of how being "more athletic" doesn't necessarily translate into baseball skills. Baseball America once said he was the most athletic player in the Tigers' system.

Did anyone else write Pete about his #5 today? #4 is pretty awesome, though. Someone took a Nintendo-like baseball video game and recreated the last half inning of Game 6, 1986. http://tinyurl.com/psmju

Keep up the minor league updates, love 'em! I am SO jacked for Super Felix, this kid is going to be the real deal. I can see Hendry eating a few million of Jones' 07 and 08 money ($4MM and $5MM, respectively) and dumping him sometime between June 15 and next spring training. I like JJ's attitude, he seems like a nice guy and all, but we all know he was a desperation signing to get SOMEONE for RF, just like the Cards did in getting Encarnacion. I don't see any way that Jones can block Pie. The other possibility would be to keep Jones and let Pierre walk, so maybe Hendry's 06 plan is to let these two play it out and keep the better of them, the other leaving to make way for Felix. That makes sense.

Nice post, John. Great to have all the audio and video streaming links in one place! That will come quite in handy for my "baseball fix" on off-days and days when Glendon Rusch is pitching.

Not sure why Bo Flowers was released. He certainly had more upside than a couple of the outfielders in Daytona and a couple of the ones in Peoria. Did he still have more to learn about pitch selection? Yes, but so does Ryan Harvey. Think the Cubs blew it on that one.

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.