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

Cubs Suffer Two Tough Blows

The Cubs followed Saturday night's disappointing loss with one of the agonizing variety on Sunday afternoon. The blown saves by Kerry Wood and Carlos Marmol also lowered the Cubs' save conversion rate to 14 saves in 22 opportunities, or an unimpressive 64%. (Marmol's "failure," of course, was due primarily to Alfonso Soriano's work in left field, not a failing of the pitcher's.)

Before Sunday's disaster, here is how the Cubs and their designated closer stacked up to the rest of the National League and the respective teams' individual saves leaders, several of whom have already lost their "closer" tags because of ineffectiveness or injury.

  Team SV/OPS SV%

SVs Leader
SV/OPS SV%
1. CIN 10/12 .833   Cordero 10/11
.909
2. HOU 17/21 .810   Valverde 15/18
.833
3. LA 9/12 .750   Saito 8/10
.800
3. FLA 9/12 .750   Gregg 10/11
.909
5. SF 14/19 .737   Wilson 14/16
.875
6 ATL 8/11 .727   Acosta 3/3
1.000
7. PIT 10/14 .714   Capps 10/10
1.000
8. PHI 14/20 .700   Lidge 12/12
1.000
9. CUBS 14/21 .667
Wood 10/14
.714
9. AZ 14/21 .667   Lyon 12/14
.857
11. MILW 16/25 .640   Gagne 10/15
.667
12. NY 9/15 .600   Wagner 9/11
.818
13. STL 17/29 .586   Isringhausen 11/17
.647
14. COL 11/20 .550   Fuentes 6/9
.667
15. WAS 10/19 .526   Rauch 10/12
.833
16. SD 9/19 .474   Hoffman 9/11
.818


Can a team win a National League pennant and convert just two-thirds of its save opps, with a closer who can only be counted on in roughly 7 of every 10 opportunities? Very recent history says yes and maybe.

Year Team
SV/OPS
SV%
SVs Leader
SV/OPS SV%
2007 COL 39/68 .574   Fuentes
20/27
.741
2006 STL 38/57 .667   Isringhausen 33/43
.767
2005 HOU 45/58 .776   Lidge 42/46
.913
2004 STL 57/73 .781   Isringhausen 47/54
.870
2003 FLA 36/50 .720
  Looper 28/34
.824
2002 SF 43/60 .717   Nen 43/51
.843

 

Pitching for last year's NL champs, Fuentes converted 20 of his first 22 save opportunities before he faltered at mid-season, blew four save chances in a row, and handed over the closer's job to Manny Corpas, who finished the season with 19 saves in 22 opportunities and a 2.08 ERA.

The '06 Cardinals' .667 save percentage is the same as the Cubs' was heading into play on Sunday. That placed the Cards seventh in the NL, just above the Cubs' ninth place standing so far this year. The '06 Cards, however, had the benefit of playing in an NL Central so destitute, 83 victories was enough to land them in the post-season.

It wouldn't appear that the 2008 Cubs wil find the going quite as easy.

 

 

 

Comments

the NL central and west leaders are all on the bottom 1/2 of the chart. heh... for arz/chc/stl it's really been about the total contribution from the pen rather than the guy at the end for the most part...though lyon's been excellent.

mlb sortable stats has Cubs at 14/22 now. after Wood 10/14, Marmol 2/3, Howry 1/1, Wuertz 0/2, Lieber 0/1 and Marshall 1/1. That in itself is unusual considering Wood has been in the closer role all season (ie. not removed from the role due to injury or ineffectiveness) so the Cubs seem to have alot of save situations spread out amongst the most non-closers (5). Probably has something to do with all the extra inning road games. other corrections... fla 10/13, la 9/13, hou 17/22, cin 10/15, sf 14/20, wash 10/20, padres 9/20 http://tinyurl.com/4mfymo detail shows: Marlins Greg has 10/11 saves but you list FLA as 9/12, it should be 10/13, Tankersly 0/2. Reds after Cordero, Burton, Weathers and Bray all 0/1. Dodgers after Saito shows Broxton 0/2, Park 1/1 Astros after Valverde shows Brocail 2/2, Borkowski 0/1, Nieve 0/1 Giants after Wilson shows Walker 0/2, Chulk 0/1, Hennessey 0/1 Nats after Rauch shows Rivera 0/3, Ayala 0/2, Colome 0/1, O'Connor 0/1, King 0/1 Padres after Hoffman shows Meredith 0/3, Bell 0/2, Thatcher 0/2, Corey 0/1, E Gonzalez 0/1 and for central division completeness... Stl (17/29), after Izzy (11/17) shows Franklin 3/5, McClellan 1/2, Flores 1/3, Reyes 1/1, Villone 0/1. Pitt (10/14), after Capps (10/10) shows Yates 0/3, Grabow 0/1 Brewers (16/25), after Gagne (10/15) shows Torres 2/4, Mota 1/2, Shouse 1/2, Turnbow 1/1, Riske 1/1

The Cubs seem to be in a good position to win their division, but they need to improve to advance in the playoffs. At the start of the season, I thought the Brewers and Reds would be the Cubs’ main division rivals. The Brewers have had too many injuries to pitchers and the Reds haven’t used their young talent, like Jay Bruce. The Brewers and Reds are 6 to 6.5 games off the division pace. Houston is only one game back in the division, but I attribute that to the remarkable performance this month from Lance Berkman. When Berkman returns to his norm, the Astros holes at third base, catcher and centerfield will be exposed. I hope Berkman’s hot bat continues for a while. The Astros and Cardinals play each other twice in the next four series. It looks like the Cardinals will be the Cubs’ main rival in the division. In order for the Cubs to advance in the playoffs, they will need a solution in centerfield in addition to better performance from their closer. I don’t see evidence that Jim Edmonds is going to hit. Reed Johnson would be satisfactory as the right-handed part of a platoon. I am surprised that Eric Patterson hasn’t made occasional appearances in centerfield at Iowa. Patterson is beginning to hit. I think Patterson is one option that should be contemplated if Edmonds cannot hit.

although the Cub braintrust won't consider it right now the train moving down the tracks for the 2008 season sure looks like the step if/when Edmonds is considered a failed experiment will be a Reed Johnson/Fukudome platoon in center with some combo of Fukudome/DeRosa/Hoffpauir in right...and that has all the markings of a Hollandsworth/DuBois platoon. Maybe it'll be different this time but if/when Hoffpauir becomes a failed experiment after that, it's waiver wire or a trade from one of the teams that have blown up their season by the end of June (ie. Detroit, Seattle, SF, SD). From those rosters, Randy Winn and David DeJesus are the only ones that seem possible targets to me. It really sucks being one OF short of success. Maybe we'll get a bit luckier this time, but I'm tired of these Matt Lawton, Ben Grieve experiments...of which Edmonds is the latest variation.

[ ]

In reply to by 10man

While definitely true, I would have been upset if Jimbo didn't at least give him a shot. Edmonds has been around for quite awhile, has played on some winning teams in StL, and crushed the Cubs at Wrigley I believe (stats anyone?). Not to mention, they basically got him for free. And is it only me, or is Pie starting to rhyme with Patterson?.....

[ ]

In reply to by Tony S.

For his career Edmonds has hit: .270 .394 .554 against the Cubs and .253 .376 .535 in Wrigely Field.

I was hoping the Cubs might have signed Randy Winn during the off season, but they were putting all their eggs in Pie. It would be nice...

Recent comments

  • 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.

  • 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. 

  • 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.