Cubs MLB Roster

Cubs Organizational Depth Chart
40-Man Roster Info

40 players are on the MLB RESERVE LIST (roster is full), plus two players are on the 60-DAY IL 

26 players on MLB RESERVE LIST are ACTIVE, twelve players are on OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT to minors, one player is on the 15-DAY IL, and one player is on the 10-DAY IL

Last updated 4-18-2024
 
* bats or throws left
# bats both

PITCHERS: 13
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Colten Brewer
Ben Brown
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Mark Leiter Jr
Hector Neris 
* Drew Smyly
Jameson Taillon 
Keegan Thompson
* Jordan Wicks

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

INFIELDERS: 7
* Michael Busch 
Garrett Cooper
Nico Hoerner
Nick Madrigal
Christopher Morel
Dansby Swanson
Patrick Wisdom

OUTFIELDERS: 4
* Cody Bellinger 
# Ian Happ
Seiya Suzuki
* Mike Tauchman 

OPTIONED: 12 
Kevin Alcantara, OF 
Michael Arias, P 
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF 
Jose Cuas, P 
Brennen Davis, OF 
Porter Hodge, P 
* Luke Little, P 
* Miles Mastrobuoni, INF
* Matt Mervis, 1B 
Daniel Palencia, P 
Luis Vazquez, INF 
Hayden Wesneski, P 

10-DAY IL: 1 
Seiya Suzuki, OF

15-DAY IL: 
* Justin Steele, P   

60-DAY IL: 2 
Caleb Kilian, P 
Julian Merryweather, P
 




Minor League Rosters
Rule 5 Draft 
Minor League Free-Agents

Czech, please!

Submitted by Dr. Joseph Hecht on

Game 106 Thread / Cubs @ Brewers (1 of 4)...how's that for a good bluff, Rob?

From Stripes:

John Winger (Bill Murray): C'mon, it's Czechoslovakia. We zip in, we pick 'em up, we zip right out again. We're not going to Moscow. It's Czechoslovakia. It's like going into Wisconsin.

Russell Ziskey (Harold Ramis): Well I got the shit kicked out of me in Wisconsin once.

=================

After a glorious 6-4 win in the opening game of this key Milwaukee series, I wanted to take a minor detour and reflect on my recent travails, aka, life following the Cubs in central Europe including the Czech Republic.

I've been to Europe several times and remember the days before mlb was so accessible on the internet. In Med School, I was in London and Paris "studying" for 6 weeks toward the tail end of my senior year and remember following the 1984 Cubs via newspaper info only. The International Herald Tribune was about my only daily source and the info was usually 48-72 hours old. Their friday edition was actually friday-saturday-sunday, so there would be no scores for 3 days and the monday edition often didn't have any of the sunday results yet.  So on my recent vacation just for grins I looked at the "sports section" of the IHT and nothing has changed. MLB Standings and 2-3 day old results with a minimal top news story often about bicycling or tennis. 

I needed to travel light on this trip so no laptop computer,  just my iPhone set up with an extended data package for what is fairly pricey internet access. I did have the new mlb at-bat application, which is essentially mlb's gameday for cell phones. Apple had just upgraded their software the morning I was leaving for Europe. Given the glitches at Apple that morning with everyone trying to download the new software,  I got a bit lucky getting the download completed with 15 minutes to spare. I was panicking an hour before leaving home as the software upgrade wasn't happening and I couldn't go back to the earlier version without losing my phone software. Visions that I might be going back to the days of IHT hell danced in by brain.  Fortunately the download completed and I might have been the first Chicagoan to have the iPhone 2.0 software. Alas, no slingbox this trip, which is the ideal way follow from afar if you have wi-fi (but that's another story).

The first hotel we stayed in (Munich) had free wi-fi and computer access in the lobby (but not in the hotel room). Given the time being 7 hours ahead, that first evening in Munich, I was following the Saturday noon start game against the Giants, Rich Harden's debut. As you recall he left with a 7-0 lead and as it was almost 9pm, I headed back to the room to crash with that secure feeling of having a game in the W column. You know the rest but since I was messed up from Jet Lag, I woke up around 3 am, couldn't get back to sleep and went back down to the hotel lobby to check out the other final scores. Two hours later...after trying to sort out what the hell happened, I was finally able to crash. Welcome to the Cubs, Rich Harden. Oh, and in Munich don't miss the Viktualienmarkt, where you can have the popular Frühstück of Weisswurst (white sausage) and sweet mustard (Weisswurstseif), sauerkraut with a pretzel and a Pilsner for breakfast although it was really more of a late night snack, Chicago time.

The trip was planned so I could miss the fewest games during the season, so it was a premeditated act to relinquish the all-star week for this vacation. I did follow some of the mid-season classic, using the gameday feed as Dempster finished the 9th. It was tough to follow much beyond that for it was the wee hours of the early Vienna morning. My Cubbie paranoia had me figuring that it would end about the 12th inning with Marmol blowing the game, permanently ruining his confidence and forcing him to enter the land of Steve Blass disease. Fortunately, Marmol was great in his inning of all-star glory and we get to forever kick Dan Uggla and Brad Lidge around instead. In Vienna, we loved the Leopold Museum and don't miss the pastries although you can get them in Chicago right here.

We were in Prague after the All-Star break and the night games were tougher to follow closely as by now I was adjusting to the time zone and an 8 pm start translated to 3 am in Prague. I did gameday watch the 5 run ninth inning in the game Dempster pitched a complete game shutout to avoid a sweep in Houston.  On the last morning on the trip, I awoke about 4 am to catch the last 4 innings of the Randy Johnson vs. Rich Harden game with his almost a no-no. It must have been a very depressing game to watch in real time let alone on a cell phone at 4:30 am in a hotel in the Czech Republic. Ah, Prague. Wonderful city of Bohemian Crystal, Czech deep red garnet jewelry and Smažený sýr (a local cheese dish)...yep, it's just like going to Wisconsin.

See you at Miller Park tuesday night, it's Little Cubster's 23 birthday party! We're rooting for WeissWurst in the sausage race.

Tags
Rich Harden
Stripes
All-Star Game

Comments

Submitted by Cubster on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:38 am

Slingbox + iPhone? thoughts? --------- the slingbox people did announce it's coming to the iPhone at the MacWorld conf last January, just don't know how soon. Probably >6 months is my guess. It took them a year to come out with the slingbox for mac although it works really well on a fast internet connection (ie. Wi-Fi or 3G).

Submitted by The Real Neal on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:21 am

Ahh, you were in Munich a week after I spent 15 hours there trying to connect flights. I had the white sausage for breakfast as well. It's pretty bland without mustard.

Submitted by Jumbo on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:09 am

It was great to see Marmol throwing so well. He looked like he did in May, Zeus-like. Wood is "not close," Howry has been shitty, but Marmol, Gaudin, and Samardzija look like the new late inning options. Nice to take game 1, looking forward to the Z-Sheets matchup tonight.

Submitted by Andrew on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:55 am

I don't know what I'd do without the internet. Living in Rome for 5 years a decade or two ago would, I imagine, just about cure me of my Cubs' addiction, but thankfully TCR and, probably, MLB.TV are around to make sure that doesn't happen. It is frustrating to not find out the scores of the current Brewers series, for example, until they're several hours old. Of course, the excitement/anxiety of living the play-by-play is probably something I can do with out as well.

Submitted by Bigz on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:10 am

let me say, not only does the lineup suck, but please stop posting game threads!

Submitted by 10man on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:05 am

Here in Manila the internet is all I depend on. ESPN here will show the Cubs live maybe about 3 or 4 times all season.

Submitted by The E-Man on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:17 am

Sorry Cubster. Vienna Pastry has closed. However, Lutz on the North Side on Montrose is still open as far as I know.

Submitted by Wes on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:06 pm

We're so damn lost. Where the hell is Innsbruck, Austria?

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:07 pm

5.8 earthquake in the middle of the day and i'm on the 7th floor. Fun times.

[ ]

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:32 pm

it's all good, epicenter was like 45 miles away...the building swaying was the real fun part. It does that some times when it's super-windy.

 

 

[ ]

Submitted by The Real Neal on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:28 pm

I guess if your building doesn't swing, that's when you're really in trouble. I looked out the window when I was on the 8th floor of a hotel in Manilla once during a quake and it looked like something from a cartoon. All the buildings around swaying haphazardly, scariest thing I ever saw.

[ ]

Submitted by 10man on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 07:31 am

I wonder was that in the 90's or the 2000's? The last truly massive quake we had here was in 1991, but only a few pretty noticeable ones since then.

[ ]

Submitted by 10man on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 07:56 am

Oh yeah remember that one. I was having late dinner at the time. Good thing I live on the ground floor where it's not as shaky :)

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:18 pm

to the Angels for Kotchman and P Stephen Marek.

[ ]

Submitted by crunch on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:36 pm

crazy good deal for LAA. even if they dont keep teix they get to pay a 1st round pick replacement less money than they'd pay for a power-streaky kotchman the next few years. LAA gets a playoff push with very little downside unless marek makes more for himself than people expect.

[ ]

Submitted by crunch on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:54 pm

that's the thing...i dont think kotchman is any more that a 20HR 30-double guy who's not gonna walk a lot. some think he's ready to break out with his power. personally, i think a guy who swings and makes contact with as much stuff as he does should be showing more of that power by now. i also don't like his prospects playing in ATL/FLA/NYM parks. and i don't really understand why rotoworld (and some others i assume) want to paint marek as a future closer. those that think highers of either or both would have a view i dont, f'sure. it's not a slam-dunk thing based on a flaw or anything.

[ ]

Submitted by Chifan on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:22 pm

Turner field is an average park (this year is 6th in runs scored and 05 it was 8th, but in 06 and 07 it was 21st and 24th in that department) and Citi Field (New Shea) is suppose to be pretty identical to Shea. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/stats/parkfactor?season=2008 Its a good deal for both sides. LA3 needed a run producer and Atlanta needed cheap talent. Though I wish they would have waited until Thursday to do this because this is going to be one boring trade deadline as Jose Guillen is the best player who might get dealt.

[ ]

Submitted by Rob G. on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:24 pm

well the old atlanta was known as "the launching pad", the new one plays a little more for pitchers. That being said, it doesn't have the dead West Coast night air or the big wall in RF.

[ ]

Submitted by crunch on Tue, 07/29/2008 - 07:38 pm

"those that think highers of either or both" my god...i dont know where to start with that one. i should use that preview more often...or type less than 3987294872394 wpm.

[ ]

Submitted by The Real Neal on Wed, 07/30/2008 - 07:18 am

He had some pretty solid BB numbers last year, but that's regressed this year. His HR's and K's are trending in the right direction, so I guess his hitting coach Bakerized him, and he's being more aggressive early in the count. After last year, he looked like another Mark Grace in the making. This year, hard to say, but first basemen who slug .440 and have a OBP in the .320's are not going to have long careers.

Recent comments

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    Indeed they do TJW!

    For the record I’m not in favor of solely building a team through paying big to free agents. But I’m also of the mind that when you develop really good players, get them signed to extensions that buy out a couple years of free agency, including with team options. And supplement the home grown players with free agent splashes or using excess prospects to trade for stars under team control for a few years. Sort of what Atlanta does, basically. Everyone talks about the dodgers but I feel that Atlanta is the peak organization at the current moment.

    That said, the constant roster churn is very Rays- ish. What they do is incredible, but it’s extremely hard to do which is why they’re the only ones frequently successful that employ that strategy. I definitely do not want to see a large market team like ours follow that model closely. But I don’t think free agent frenzies is always the answer. It’s really only the Dodgers that play in that realm. I could see an argument for the Mets too. The Yankees don’t really operate like that anymore since the elder Steinbrenner passed. Though I would say the reigning champions built a good deal of that team through free agent spending.

  • Childersb3 (view)

    The issue is the Cubs are 11-7 and have been on the road for 12 of those 18.  We should be at least 13-5, maybe 14-4. Jed isn't feeling any pressure to play anyone he doesn't see fit.
    But Canario on the bench, Morel not at 3B for Madrigal and Wisdom in RF wasn't what I thought would happen in this series.
    I was hoping for Morel at 3B, Canario in RF, Wisdom at DH and Madrigal as a pinch hitter or late replacement.
    Maybe Madrigal starts 1 game against the three LHSP for Miami.
    I'm thinking Canario goes back to Iowa on Sunday night for Mastrobuoni after the Miami LHers are gone.
    Canario needs ABs in Iowa and not bench time in MLB.
    With Seiya out for a while Wisdom is safe unless his SOs are just overwhelmingly bad.

    My real issue with the lineup isn't Madrigal. I'm not a fan, but I've given up on that one.
    It's Tauchman getting a large number of ABs as the de factor DH and everyday player.
    I didn't realize that was going to be the case.
    We need a better LH DH. PCA or ONKC need to force the issue in about a month.
    But, even if they do so, Jed doesn't have to change anything if the Cubs stay a few over .500!!!

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    Totally depends on the team and the player involved. If your team’s philosophy is to pay huge dollars to bet on the future performance of past stars in order to win championships then, yes, all of the factors you mentioned are important.

    If on the other hand, if the team’s primary focus is to identify and develop future stars in an effort to win a championship, and you’re a young player looking to establish yourself as a star, that’s a fit too. Otherwise your buried within your own organization.

    Your comment about bringing up Canario for the purposes of sitting him illustrates perfectly the dangers of rewarding a non-performing, highly paid player over a hungry young prospect, like Canario, who is perpetually without a roster spot except as an insurance call up, but too good to trade. Totally disincentivizing the performance of the prospect and likely diminishing it.

    Sticking it to your prospects and providing lousy baseball to your fans, the consumers and source of revenue for your sport, solely so that the next free agent gamble finds your team to be a comfortable landing spot even if he sucks? I suppose  that makes sense to some teams but it’s definitely not the way I want to see my team run.

    Once again, DJL, our differences in philosophy emerge!

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    That’s just kinda how it works though, for every team. No team plays their best guys all the time. No team is comprising of their best 26 even removing injuries.

    When baseball became a business, like REALLY a business, it became important to keep some of the vets happy, which in turn keeps agents happy and keeps the team with a good reputation among players and agents. No one wants to play for a team that has a bad reputation in the same way no one wants to work for a company that has a bad rep.

    Don’t get me wrong, I hate it too. But there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

    On that topic, I find it silly the Cubs brought up Canario to sit as much as he has. He’s going to get Velazquez’d, and it’s a shame.

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    Of course, McKinstry runs circles around $25 million man Javier Baez on that Tigers team. Guess who gets more playing time?

    But I digress…

  • Sonicwind75 (view)

    Seems like Jed was trying to corner the market on mediocre infielders with last names starting with "M" in acquiring Madrigal, Mastroboney and Zach McKinstry.  

     

    At least he hasn't given any of them a Bote-esque extension.  

  • Childersb3 (view)

    AZ Phil:
    Rookie ball (ACL) starts on May 4th. Do yo think Ramon and Rosario (maybe Delgado) stay in Mesa for the month of May, then go to MB if all goes "solid"?
     

  • crunch (view)

    masterboney is a luxury on a team that has multiple, capable options for 2nd, SS, and 3rd without him around.  i don't hate the guy, but if madrigal is sticking around then masterboney is expendable.

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    I THINK I agree with that decision. They committed to Wicks as a starter and, while he hasn’t been stellar I don’t think he’s been bad enough to undo that commitment.

    That said, Wesneski’s performance last night dictates he be the next righty up.

    Quite the dilemma. They have many good options, particularly in relief, but not many great ones. And complicating the situation is that the pitchers being paid the most are by and large performing the worst - or in Taillon’s case, at least to this point, not at all.

  • Childersb3 (view)

    Wesneski and Mastrobuoni to Iowa

    Taillon and Wisdom up

    Wesneski can't pitch for a couple of days after the 4 IP from last night. But Jed picked Wicks over Wesneski.

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