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

Castro Gets the Call

As virtually all of Cub Nation has probably already heard, the Cubs have summoned 20-year-old Starlin Castro to the bigs. He's in tonight's lineup in Cincinnati, hitting eighth. Ryan Theriot is moving over to second. Chad Tracy, meanwhile, has been banished to Iowa, Andrew Cashner has been promoted to Iowa from Tennessee, and Josh Vitters has been moved up to Tennessee from Daytona.

Back to the game tonight. Here's the batting order that will go up against the Reds' Homer Bailey:

Theriot 4, Fukudome 9, Lee 3, Byrd 8, Ramirez 5, Soriano 6, Soto 2, Castro 6, Silva 1.

Sullivan points out in the Tribune that Castro is the youngest Cubs rookie since 19-year-old Oscar Gamble made his debut 41 years ago. Ironically, Gamble also broke in against the Reds, in Cincinnati.

Also found this item in Sullivan's story amusing: Jim Hendry said these moves were not motivated by the Cubs getting swept in Pittsburgh. "I knew two days ago I was going to do this before Cincinnati," the Cubs GM said.

Some thoughts on the move by Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus (subscription required):

The Dominican shortstop just turned 20 in March, but after a monster spring and this much offense so far in the Southern League, I think we can have some confidence that he's going to hit immediately. Certainly not .376, but he should hold his own.., as in yesterday's Scouting Notebook, a scout believed he could be a future 70 hitter, which is nearly batting title territory. Beyond the ability to hammer line drives all over the field, Castro has a good, not great approach, but he's not overly aggressive like Corey Patterson was, and it shouldn't be a problem in the big leagues.

Goldstein also cautions that Castro is not "some sort of massive tools monster." He rates Castro's speed as only average and says not to expect much in the way of longball power until Castro's frame fills out.

Comments

Sorry, all, for the Corey Patterson reference. Before I knew it, I had typed the words and well, I'm just really sorry.

Just think at this rate - three more promotions and Soto can bat fourth!

Goldstein also cautions that Castro is not "some sort of massive tools monster." ...yes castro is an awesome prospect, but really...we shouldnt expect more than a renteria/vizquel type performance out of the guy at his peak. he's just not built for super-stardom...at least now...probably not ever.

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

We shouldn't expect it right away or anything--and I know that scouts etc. are trying to project based on what Castro has done so far in the minors and his current body--but watching Castro's swing in spring training and looking at the number of extra base hits he's able to collect in the minors, I don't think it's completely unreasonable that he could produce DeRosa+ power. He's not a big guy, but he's so comfortable putting the bat on the ball that he can take some pretty aggressive swings, and he's already using his legs well.

At this point, I am just happy to say that he makes the team better. It is not their most urgent need, but a Theriot/Castro middle infield sure seems like an upgrade over a Fonty/Theriot one.... I just wish that this did something to address the MASSIVE production void coming from their corner IFs, or to add someone reliable to the pen...

[ ]

In reply to by Jace

the whole thing seems like a massive distraction from the season-as-is to me. it's the answer to a problem that doesn't exist and the potential upgrade quality seems to be so minor in the immediate future. we get a new toy to look at on TV, though.

[ ]

In reply to by The Real Neal

the very idea of bringing up an "upgrade" that we slot into the 8-hitting slot says a lot about the upgrade, imo. some believe the D upgrade at SS will be worth counting, too. i'm in the camp that believes that while theriot is pretty damn average, he's not a liability.

Also from Baseball Prospectus, Christina Kahrl uses about 600 words to say that she thinks the call-up makes sense and that she's expecting early, Edgar Renteria-like numbers from the young man--.270 to .280 average, a few homers--plus a nice defensive improvement over Theriot.

Reds lineup v. Silva: Cabrera SS, Phillips 2B, Votto 1B, Rolen 3B, Bruce RF, Gomes LF, Stubbs CF, Hernandez C, Homer Bailey P

Chad Tracy has 6+033 MLB Service Time through yesterday, so he would have had to agree to accept an Optional Assignment to Iowa. And to get him to agree, the Cubs probably had to guarantee some or all of the $550K in performance incentives in his contract. Also, Starlin Castro presently gets four minor league options (as long as the 4th one is used prior to his completing five full seasons), in case the Cubs option him back to the minors at some point later this season.

If Castro sticks, what role does Baker have on the team? Wish A-Ram would get himself together at the plate. Lee, too.

The Cincy TV announcers just said that the 6 RBI by Castro in his MLB debut was the greatest performance ever by a rookie in his first game. One game, one Major League record.

Other than his Cubbie disaster with The Wide-Out, the below plus the recent Cub Top 10 prospects is not at all the disaster Mike C whines about constantly. And interestingly NAVIGATOR has been silent about "Teflon Tim" recently. Go figure. "During his 27-year career, Wilken has seen a distinguished list of players signed and ushered into the big leagues, including: Derek Bell, Chris Carpenter, Carlos Delgado, Ryan Freel, Shawn Green, Roy Halladay, Steve Karsay, Billy Koch, Josh Phelps, Alex Rios, Vernon Wells and Michael Young. While with the Blue Jays, he contributed to the club's streak of seeing 11 straight first-round draft picks reach the major leagues. In addition, during his 11 years after being promoted to national crosschecker of the Blue Jays, Toronto's draft was ranked in the top five each year - producing four Rawling Gold Glove winners and two Cy Young Award winners. In 2005, 16 products of the Blue Jays organization were on the All-Star Ballot and six were selected to the All-Star Team. In addition, in 2003, the Blue Jays were named Baseball America's organization of the year."

[ ]

In reply to by The E-Man

Ummmm E-man sorry to bag on you but just because Wilken had a great career some where else doesn't mean the picture is all sunshine and rose petals in the Cubs system. One thing doesn't have a damn thing to do with another. If the organization isn't going to pay top dollar for the best players in the draft then your still going to get a shitty product. More importantly he is only as good as the people around him and the people in the Cubs system, are how should i put it, F'n horrible at talent evaluation. McPhail was a great GM in Minnesota, because he had great people working for him. He wasn't so much in Chicago, in fact he was a pretty shitty GM. He continues to be that same shitty GM in Baltimore but with better scouts and talent evaluation. Minnesota keeps on trucking like he never existed and McPhail never did a damn thing to help this franchise win a World Series. He took a couple can't miss prospects that carried us about as far as they could and then it flamed out every time. All you have done is thrown out Wilken's past accomplishments and concluded our farm system is better and/or fixed because of what he did in the past. In fact you didn't even mention one single accomplishment from Wilken to the Cubs, thats pretty telling.

I-Cubs' listing of upcoming pitching matchups doesn't include Cashner yet [assuming he'll continue to start]...they're home for a brief 4 game set w/ OKC before hitting the road so may have to wait a while before a chance to get a look @ him...meantime, Castro: revolution? revelation? wow...

damn...cashner now slated to throw tuesday in las vegas on first game of road trip!

Recent comments

  • Eric S (view)

    With two home runs (so far) and 5 rbi today … clearly Nick Martini is the straw that stirs the Reds drink 😳

  • 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.  it will be telling if morel is not used at 3rd when an extreme fly ball pitcher like imanaga is on the mound.

  • 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!!!