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

Welcome to The NEW Cub Reporter!

On July 21st, 2001, Christian started this site somewhere on the World Wide Web with a post simply titled, "Welcome to the Cub Reporter." About six and a half years later, the NEW Cub Reporter is born. Yes, the rumors are true, we've moved to a new site and to our own domain name (finally). If anything, we'll be easier to find now at www.thecubreporter.com. I suppose the first question will be: Why the move?

While we appreciated the opportunities afforded to us at MVN.com and all the fine people working over there, we're just not the conforming types. Plus, we were very anxious to take on the headache of maintaining our own website. Mostly though, we just wanted to do our own thing and be able to swear whenever we wanted.

The second question you might be asking is: What's the ultimate answer to life, the Universe and Everything? Answer: 42 (it's even in our FAQ).

Third question(damn, what's with all the nagging): What's new about the site?

Plenty my friends...plenty.

REGISTER/USER ACCOUNT

 

The first thing you'll want to do is register for the site. The links are in the upper left or below an article. It's simple enough, choose a username, enter your email of choice and you'll receive a verification email. Follow the instructions and then change the password provided by the system and you're in. Now you may be tempted not to register if you don't comment too often, but I strongly encourage that you do, indeed register. First, only registered users are allowed to comment, but nearly as important, registered users will get the uncached version of the site. In order to do our best to speed up things around here, guests are served a cached version of the site which will not contain the latest updates.

In the upper left, you'll see a box with your username in it. You'll want to check out the "My Account" link. The first tab labeled "View" just tells you how long you've been a registered user. Under the "Edit" tab though" you can change your email address or password if you desire. If you want to add a signature to your comments, you can add it here. We do ask that you either bold or italicize your signature to offset it from your the main content of your comments. You can use the tags <em></em> for italics or <strong></strong> to accomplish that. As soon as I figure out how to make the system do it automatically, I'll let you know.

There's also an option to have a personal contact form. If you want other users to be able to email you, leave it checked. Do not fear, your email address is never displayed. Finally, there's an option to change your time zone as well and any time references on the site should follow that.

If you experience any problems trying to register, please drop me an email right away and I'll do my best to fix it for you. Please include the email address you registered with and the username.

FRONT PAGE/SIDEBARS

Now that your logged-in, let's take a spin through the site. The menu bar up top is pretty self-explanatory and we'll touch on some of those at a later date, To say the least, it's incomplete at the moment, think of this as TCR v0.5 Beta, we'll hopefully be close to TCR v1.0 by Opening Day.

One of the new layout features is a "fluid width" middle column. If you go ahead and try and resize your Internet browser and drag it from left to right, you'll notice how the sidebars stay the same size, but the middle column expands or shrinks depending on the size of your browser window. A little more room for our posts and main content.

If you wish to increase or decrease the size of the font, most browsers will let you do that automatically. It generally is either the Control key (PC) or Command/Apple Key(Mac) and the + or - sign to increase or decrease the font size.

You'll notice under the headlines of each story, the author's byline followed by the date and time of the post and the categories of the post. You can click on the categories and it'll bring up all the other articles under that category. Underneath each post is the number of comments on an article plus a new feature that will tell you how many new comments since your last visit. You'll now never miss a chance to get in the last word.

Moving to the sidebars, you'll notice in your "Navigation" Block in the upper left, something labeled "Quick Links". Simply a few links that we think everyone will find handy, especially for our comment discussions. A quick rundown of the rest of the sidebar content:

Featured Post - Somewhere to highlight the latest and greatest post. Makes us writers feel less guilty if we want to just blog about a little something and still feature one of our more in-depth columns.

Gameday Weather - Self-explanatory.

TCR Approved - We'll cycle through some products that we feel you might like, books, DVD's, apparel. Afterall, we do now have to pay the bills. Don't be shy about clicking on the google ads on the left or footer as well.

Vote! - This will display the latest poll. Polls though will also have a front page entry where you can comment.

Site Search - Self-explanatory, it should search our archives over at MVN though as well, through the magic of Google.

Player Search - Search Baseball Reference if you wish. I'll try and add a Fangraphs one eventually, I was just having problems with the size of the graphic and our sidebars.

Archives - Right now, it's just got some posts from about early January. Hopefully (Maybe), we'll get the rest of our archives all hosted locally. If you want to access past months, just click on the current month and it'll take you to a full page view where you can access past months.

COMMENTS

The comment system probably went through the biggest changes. Most of that is due to just how our new software handles comments (Drupal if you must know). As mentioned earlier, underneath each story you'll either see "Add New Comment" or the number of comments left on an article. A new feature is that it should tell you how many new comments have been left since you last visited. If you click on the number of total comments, it'll take you to the first comment on the article. If you click on the number of new comments since you last visited, it'll take you to the first new comment.

I imagine the biggest concern over the comments is that there is no longer an option to view them in a pop-up box. Unfortunately the software we used to build this, DOES NOT natively allow for pop-up comments, so all comments now are in a full page view. At the moment, we don't have the resources (meaning money) to code that any differently. We hope to bring that feature back one day, but please know that most websites out there do not have that feature for a variety of reasons.

If you happen to be the first user to comment, you'll see a dialog box with your signature already placed in the comment box. You'll notice comments now have a "Subject" and "Comment". Most folks just type the first few words of there comment in the subject line and the rest in the comment box. Most folks will be happy to see the "Preview" option is back. Below the comment box, you'll see some basic instructions. Web page addresses will be automatically linked and truncated (past 50 characters), so no need to learn the <a> tag, although you can use it if you wish. There are only five tags that can be currently used in the comments: <em> for italics, <strong> for bold, <a> for links, and <cite> and <code>. Those last two I may get rid of and if there's something else people feel should be allowed, let me know.

Moving on, once there's at least one comment on a post, you should see a series of drop-down menus labeled "Comment Viewing Options". The defaults are "Threaded View - Expanded", "Date - Oldest First", "150 Comments Per Page", but each person can tailor those to their individual preferences. You can play around with the settings as you wish, but the comments are now set up so that you can reply directly to another user's comment without having to do a lot of cutting and pasting. We STRONGLY RECOMMEND that if you do use the "Reply" button that you copy and paste the title of the comment that you are replying to into your subject box and add Re: in front of it (okay, still a little cutting and pasting). So if there's a post with the subject "Soriano", your reply would look like "Re: Soriano". The reason is that if a user chooses one of the flat views, they'll know which comments are related to each other. I do hope to automate that in the near future.

------------------

Otherwise, it's business as usual. You will be seeing quite a few more articles from me in the very near future(once I recover from elbow surgery that I had yesterday). Getting this site up took up most of my writing time from me...you guys can decide whether that's good or bad. I did compile most of the prospects lists from this offseason, in case you want to stick to baseball talk today.

I did want to thank all my fellow writers for their patience, as the process of getting this site designed and ready to go took far longer than it should have. Also wanted to thank Steve at HotDrupal for saving us from a near server disaster...we were just days away from repeating the MVN fiasco that plagued us the last time we moved. Hopefully I didn't just jinx everything...

We do hope you enjoy the site and feel free to contact us with any suggestions. This is really just the tip of the iceberg though, and we do think everyone will be thrilled with the new site, the new look, and the new features.

PS - If you happen to have any experience with Drupal or web applications in general, particularly CSS stylesheets, we(I) could always use the help ,especially if you're willing to help out for free or for a very, very small fee.

Tags

Comments

Love the site! Good job!

Good move, you guys aren't letting the man hold you down. Fuck MVN!! I can swear now, right? :) Go Cubs!!

I'm glad to see you all made the move from MVN. The site looks great!!

This is some serious digital sexiness.

nice site change. maybe i'll comment more. nah, probly not.

Well done.

Its too bad you moved since I enjoyed the other MVN blogs that were in one place. Good luck. Since you guys are free to do what you want. Can AZ Phil stick some wireless webcams up at Fitch Park etc. so the rest of us can see what he sees.

Nice job. I like the Quick Links for people looking for real actual data to back up their (various) arguments.

[ ]

In reply to by SheffieldCornelia

that was the idea...I'll switch them up from time to time.

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

you can add the ESPN MLB Stats page as they have some real good stat breakdowns that baseball-reference doesn't have.

The new site looks great!

[ ]

In reply to by big_lowitzki

Drinks on me in Parachat, this afternoon!

Way to go guys! And a warm welcome back to Preview function. No more typoes!

Longtime lurker at the old site. Love this new look. The RSS feed seems to work nicer than the old site's as well.

I love it, Rob (and everyone else)! I knew I held on to this domain name for years for a good reason.

[ ]

In reply to by Stevens

I've been away so long that I don't have the feel for what's going on with the team anymore, and the rest of the guys are doing a great job. That said, I always get excited around Opening Day, and now that we're here, who knows?

I love the new site smell.

So replies to comments don't show up in chronological order but directly under the comment they reply to? Is this a setting I can change?

[ ]

In reply to by Indiana JJ

At the top of the comments there are different options (right under "Comment Viewing Options"). If you don't want the threaded comments, choose one of the two "flat comments" options. _____________________________ visit the mindful mission.

[ ]

In reply to by Indiana JJ

I believe if you change your viewing preference to "Flat List-Expanded," you'll get what you're looking for.

Yep, change to "flattened" view in the drop down above the comments. And make sure you do "Re: Whatever" when you're replying, so those of us using flat view can make sense of it..

[ ]

In reply to by vorare

is I found a plugin that will fill in the subject box automatically if you hit reply. Will implement shortly...

The new site looks very good.

I voted "who are you people?" Kidding, nice site. Excuse me while I try some tags. What the heck is the em tag? What the heck is the strong tag? What the heck is the cite tag? What the heck is the code tag? ------ Ryno http://wolf-report.blogspot.com

[ ]

In reply to by Ryno

gonna get rid of the cite tag, thought it would indent, but italicizes.

maybe blockquote?

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

RobG: Just curious, why the "em" tag instead "i" for italics?

[ ]

In reply to by Timmer

em was already there as a default to be honest. I'll play around with these later.

[ ]

In reply to by Rob G.

Hey Rob: How about replacing the code tag with the PRE tag? I think that would let us organize stat tables in a monospaced font without having to manually enter the space character.

[ ]

In reply to by vorare

Good idea, wonder if you could do it with code and &nbsp Guess who.  Year   Team   G   GS    W    L  2005   STL   33   32   13   14  2006   STL   33   33   14   16  2007   CHC   34   33   12    9 ------ Ryno http://wolf-report.blogspot.com

[ ]

In reply to by vorare

Will test them out...

 thanks everone for the tips...

there's a post up on our prospects and will put up a game thread later.

Pretty sure that's the name of a porno I saw once.

Finally, no more spooks looking over tcr shoulders. Truth will always replace Fact...if you wait long enough

Being unfashionably late to the beta-testing, I just created my first "story" and saved it without it publishing yet, or without it blowing up the new website, or without it accidentally killing anyone, or anything. I am the greatest blogger EVER!

when you click on the text "Quick Links" on the user box top left it takes you to a non-existent page "http://quicklinks/" Truth will always replace Fact...if you wait long enough

[ ]

In reply to by 10man

Fixed...thanks.

I miss BIG Names as a subject. It makes it easier to skim...I know who I do and don't want to read:)

[ ]

In reply to by The Joe

yeah, it is pretty hard to hunt for the author of each comment.

 

still, overall, I give the roll out a 9.5.  Has a good beat, infectious groove. 

I root for the Cubs, how about you? The Joe "TCR Keeper Champion"

It says signature will be displayed at the end of comment, but it shows up in the top of the comment box...do i have to move it to the bottom every time?

[ ]

In reply to by The Joe

I hit enter a few times before my signature under my account, that moves it down in the comment box. The Joe - 2007 TCR Keeper Champion

Comments.

-Better? The Joe - 2007 TCR Keeper Champion

congrats for the change, its really good

roses are red violets are blue baseball is back and t/c/r is new ! maybe the new site will be the impetus for a 2008 world series victory!?!?!

The site looks fabulous! BTW, I read your Bio. Does this make me your mistress, or your second wife?

-Rob's wife is here! Wait...Rob recently dis-invited me to his wedding. The Joe - 2007 TCR Keeper Champion

...on your new independence. Looks awesome. Thank you for all the fine hard work you do to help us Cubs fans enjoy our baseball experience even more. I appreciate your talents and efforts. It Happens Every Spring in my pants.

-Sorry Rob, I didn't have time to read your comment...I was busy saving Abraham Lincoln. The Joe - 2007 TCR Keeper Champion

-When I entered Parachat, I was given this message: "Welcome the new TCR!!!" Is that intentional? The Joe - 2007 TCR Keeper Champion

I like the idea of doing your own thing. About a month ago, I thought it would be nice to have the newest comments on top, and Rob G. told me that they could not because of the MVN format. Congrats.

[ ]

In reply to by Adam

I also like how we can edit our posts so that if we make a typo, we don't have to make another post to correct it.

[ ]

In reply to by Adam

Actually that`will be disappearing...a little too much power for you guys. There is a patch I want to install that puts a time limit on the edit button for users, so you can only edit your own comment for like five minutes. Unfortunately it's written for an older version of Drupal and I got a fatal error when I applied it. I'm in the process of trying to find someone to update it.

-I was given this message: "We are currently performing maintenance operations. During this time, sections of the site will not be available. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause." The Joe - 2007 TCR Keeper Champion

-Yeah, we don't want anyone revising history...without a time machine. The Joe - 2007 TCR Keeper Champion

Congrats, guys, on the move. You were better than MVN anyway. Now maybe you can work on fixing Sam Zell?

Thank the Lord. Now I can resume my unholy use of colorful metaphors! What a fucking relief!

Let me just say this site is so NOT 3/44!!! Congrats

I hadn't heard any of the rumors...I was shocked! Excellent work, Rob! It's like watching as one's child moves into his own apartment for the first time...except that I've only known the child for like 9 months...and I don't actually have any children. Also, I never knew the world of comment previews before. It's pretty sweet. I never tried using tags before either.

Recent comments

  • 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.

  • 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...