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

Prior VERBOTTEN, Hendry’s Downfall or Glenallen and the Spiders from Mars

TCR's guest correspondent Joseph Hecht, M.D. is back with a look at the wild and wacky side of baseball injuries. ---- Now that Mark Prior may be the only player in the arbitration process to receive a slight pay cut, he should be embarrassed but definitely motivated to make more money from here on out. No more excuses as to some wacky injury this year, correct? After all, he’s covered every possible thing that can go wrong, right? (Image courtesty of Jeff Roberson/AP) To paraphrase Johnny Carson’s line to Ed McMahon, “Wrong, oh traumatized Cub one”. Take a look at a few of the baseball injuries he’s yet to suffer. Our pitching prodigy is explicitly forbidden to see this stuff (just in case his ailments are psychosomatic). I “stumbled” onto the True Baseball Injuries website that has some beauties. Lets start by preventing him from talking to ‘70’s Cub outfielder Jose Cardenal at the next Cub convention. As a kid, Jose Cardenal must have had some great excuses to get out of school. He wouldn’t dare come up with a lame excuse like, my dog at my homework. He missed a game in 1972 because he was kept up all night by chirping crickets outside his hotel room. Two years later he missed a game because he couldn’t blink, reporting that his eyes were stuck, “open”.

Next I “bumped” into a website called The Baseball Injury Hall of Fame. Their list includes over 30 of the weirdest injuries that have happened to baseball players and of course our Cubs and their maladies have been able-bodied in their representation.

Some of these injury reports are the party line as to what happened. If the truth came out, some of these players just might have violated something in their contract or even worse been the laughing stock of the clubhouse and the whole baseball world. I’m sure they were the latter from those in the know.

Here are few of my favorites, but I’d love to see more from our readers:

We all remember Slammin’ Sammy Sosa was once sidelined for several weeks with back spasms, which he claims were caused by his own sneezing. We’re unlikely to hear what he really was doing, it’s was fun speculating. It was interesting that nobody blamed it on him working out. Rumor has it that he wrenched his back opening a bottle of Creatine.

Cub anti-LOOGY, Mike Remlinger fractured his little finger when he got it caught in a clubhouse recliner. He was told he might as well stay in that recliner because he had to be put on the disabled list for 2 weeks.

Slugger Glenallen Hill, severely cut up his foot causing him to miss several games. Supposedly, he was deathly afraid of spiders and he had a nightmare where he was being devoured by spiders. He was so startled that he fell out of bed, shattering a glass table and then stepped on the glass shards. If anyone see’s Glenallen, please remind him to return my copy of the movie Arachnophobia to me.

Surfing injury? Remember Carlos Zambrano’s non-throwing injury? He developed tennis elbow from using a computer to talk with his brother in Venezuela. Or was he just posting too much on TCR?

Because of Z’s sore elbow, our former manager’s wife supposedly went shopping to help Z recover from that dreaded ailment. Kindly, she brought her hubby’s ace pitcher “ergonomic” equipment for computer use, such as wrist and elbow guards. Reading between the lines, those items just may have been Dusty’s keepsakes she found laying around the house. Were they souvenirs from Barry Bonds locker? In addition to keeping his computer ailment at bay, maybe Carlos The Slugger could use them to dig in like BB does with all his body armor.

It “struck” me that this off season, while Cub General Manager, Jim Hendry signed Ted Lilly to a 4 year contract as he lay on a hospital bed being readied for an angioplasty, it may not have been his first signing of a free agent while being a patient. Apparently. he signed Greg Maddux in February 2004, while in a cast and recovering from surgery for a ruptured quadriceps tendon (the tendon just above his kneecap). He had tripped on a dustpan while carrying his son’s birthday present down some stairs. Could this be his modus operandi we’re seeing? In the next couple of weeks, if we see that Mr. Hendry suffers a severe ankle sprain or a debilitating hangnail, we should all keep our eyes open. It just might be his way of softening up Big Z’s agent, Barry Praver, to get that home town discount this spring, on what we all hope leads to the completion of Z’s very lucrative long term contract.

Comments

Doug Strange got suntan lotion under his contact lense. That left the Rangers burned.

I ran into a door the other morning and my ear bled for 20 minutes. I think something's wrong with me.

Ryan Theriot will report a loss of vision in the coming weeks. Trying to read the black text on dark gray background on this website to gather ammunition to pass to Lou that the fans want to see him play in '07, Theriot strains his eyeballs.

I always appreciated the "flu-like symptoms" euphemism for guys who were too hung-over to play. At least I knew that someone was having a good time.

When I was a kid, my friends and I were catching flyballs from one of those water balloon "wingers". It would shoot balls into the stratosphere and come down as a knuckler. I lost one in the air, but it found me....right on the nose. My nose exploded, ending my baseball season. Blood, TONS of blood. I still can't breathe right.

One of my football teammates in high school was unable to play in an important game because an untreated (and extreme) case of jock itch extended all the way from his groin to his calf. One of the most God-awful things I have ever seen.

sophomore baseball team, Maine East High School, fields were wet (like they always were in March), so we'd find any remotely dryer spot of grass to take grounders and practice.... I was taking groundballs and it hit a rock or probably about three rocks, right smack in the mouth. No big deal except I was wearing braces at the time and my lip got caught on the front 2 braces. It was bloody and I've got a scar on my upper lip to always remember it... I was back out there within an hour though taking grounders again. Of course I went from relentlessly charging the ball to the Aramis Ramirez ole' method, but whatever. It took me about 2 weeks to get over it....

2nd sports story.... In our basement growing up, we took an old basketball hoop and my Dad welded it down so that it was the right size for those mini-basketballs. So I'd play down there against my brother or friends and it was like 8 ft ceilings and not much room on either side, so it was basically wrestling, no real rules or anything but you could dunk which was cool. So one time I went up, got pushed a little and my wrist got caught on a jagged piece of metal that was sort of near the back that somehow we avoided over the last 5 years of playing. Tore up a very deep gash only a few inches from where you wouldn't want to tear up your wrist... my only other sports injury was breaking my left elbow playing in some adult league game about 3 years back, just landed straight on and SMASH!!

Similar to Rob. I had a bad hop go right into my nose while taking grounders at third. Bled like a stuck pig

I took one off my teeth while playing 2nd base on a field that had a lot of erosion on the infield. Wanted: Fact Checker According to Phil Rodgers, Sammy Sosa hit 60 HR's in three consecutive seasons. Tim Kurkjin, apparently thinks that Goose Gossage had more wins than Eckersley.

The day I realized I should be a baseball watcher and not a fielder, was when a baseball was hit right into my eye. I have good video game reflexes though...

One for crunch: From BP's Pecota prospect's article: 'which reveals that a typical pitcher can expect to have an ERA about 25% higher if he pitches as a starter instead of out of the bullpen. '

High school basketball, junior year, districts final game against our archrival. Late in the first half I saw that the baseline was open and went at full speed toward the basket, jumped as high as I could and almost overran the basket, but was able to get the dunk down with 2 hands. The other team's center closed on me too late and I bumped his face (hard) with my calf, leaving literally four deep teethmarks in the back of my lower calf as I was fully extended. Also, that collision pushed me off course and I scraped the bottom of my chin on the top of the backboard -- needed 7 stitches. For good measure I banged my right knee directly on the rim as I was coming down, leaving a nasty bruise. Not fun.

Off topic, but on www.baseball-reference.com they are giving you a free $2 to sponsor a page (you can pick from the list of $2 guys) if you signup for an account (free) and fill out a survey (takes like 2 minutes). I did it and signed up for the "Snapper Kennedy" page. He played one game in the big leagues and it was for the Cubs in 1902. Unfortunately, he went 0-5. In the sponsor field I gave a big shout-out to The Cub Reporter.

hmm, it was only good for the first 1500, I must have been too late, thanks for the TCR shout out too manny

Manny, Snapper wasn't a great hitter but will forever hold a record that can never be broken: highest career fielding percentage. I believe he is tied for first on that one, but still, it's impressive.

Leaving aside the stories of my own numerous sports injuries in high school and college (broken fingers, a dozen sprained ankles - one so bad it required a week in the hospital, broken nose, etc.) from all sports, here are two stories which illustrate how times have changed. I went to a Catholic high school in Danville. At an away football game - I believe in Gibson City - my friend went down to cover a kickoff, and got his knee absolutely destroyed on a low block. The play went for a touchdown. They kicked the extra point with no one noticing my friend sprawled and writhing in the middle of the field. But the real story was that not only was no doctor nor any medical personnel present at the game, we did not even bring a stretcher so he could be carried him off. No ice, no nuthin. He spent the rest of the game and an hour bus ride home holding his knee in place with his own two hands. Imagine the lawsuit that would ensue today. Not surprisingly, his knee was never the worth a damn, even post-surgery. Secondly, occasionally in PE class we used to play 16-inch softball (we called it "mushball" - ignorant downstaters as we were) on the blacktop parking lot behind the school. The team I was on was at bat and we were standing along the third base line. The batter took a mighty swing, lost control of the bat and it came hurtling like a helicopter towards me. The fellow standing beside me had his back to the plate and never saw it coming. The bat smashed into the side of his head and blood spurted out of his ear, mouth and the rest of his head, too. No lawsuit, no nuthin. It's been 34 years but some things you remember like yesterday.

a game of football with my high school buddies at our old elementary school field, in the pouring rain. i catch a little swing pass and head up-field, somebody jumps on my back for the tackle, i lose my footing in the mud, and my legs went in opposite directions. my poor groin muscles on BOTH sides were stretched beyond what they were meant to do. i had to be carried home. a double groin pull is terrible, terrible thing.

Danville Joe During my schooling in Naperville we also played "mushball" in PE class. Only ours was inside, using either one of those souvenir bats or a T-ball bat. The end of the bat was taped so it looked like you were swinging a 16 inch softball on a stick. HR if you hit it over the basketball bleachers! I miss mushball.

Pitching in a Chicagoland college baseball game on a thursday afternoon I threw a low 80's fastball and fielded a 100mph line-drive between my eyes. Wearing glasses this was a miracle that I can still see. I went down but saw the ball laying nearby so I picked it up to throw to first but then I saw my hand was full of blood. I still remember saying "maybe I won't throw it" and just tossed it to the ground following the ball with my body. I remember watching the Hawks in a Stanley Cup playoff game or some big hockey game with an ice bag over my face all night. Boym when they pack your nose it sure is uncomfortable! Proud to say that I piched on Saturday. Threw the entire game submarine style since my body was in shock and during warmups I couldn't throw to the plate on the fly with a normal motion. Won the game 11-9 with teammate who was batting .150 hitting two homers over the centerfield fence. Actually got recruited to pitch for the Wheaton Cardinals by the umpire that day. What a memory!

Running the 800 at a track meet in 7th grade, I had the immediate and sudden need to go ... sit on a toilet. At the end of lap one I kept running, but it was towards to bathroom, not the finish line. This is the stupidest sports "injury" excuse thread isn't it?

A few years ago, the Brewers lost their starting catcher, Dave Nilsson, to "Root River fever" that he contracted during the off-season in his native Austrailia. Apparently it is quite debilitating, as it pretty much ended his career as a player.

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.