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

Brewers @ Cubs: Anderson vs Montgomery (Game 142)

MIL (73-68): RHP Chase Anderson (8-3, 3.06)  
CHC (77-64): LHP Mike Montgomery (5-7, 3.38) 
First pitch: 3:05pmCST

Montgomery, who almost lost his rotation spot, is in for the gimpy Arrieta. Montgomery gave up 3 ER in 5 innings and lost to the Braves on Sunday. He’s 1-3 with an 8.74 in six appearances (one start) against the Brewers. Overall, they are 24-92 (.261) against him. Ryan* Braun* is 4-9 with a HR.*

Anderson gave up 3 ER in 5.1 innings for a no-decision in Cincinnati in his last outing. He’s 1-1 with a 8.00 in his two starts against the Cubs this season. For their careers, they are 21—82 (.256) against him. Bryant is 4-11 with 3 HR. Yes, please.

Davies (16-8) and Hendricks (6-4) close it out tomorrow at 1:20pmCST.    

Go Cubs!

Comments

Torn labrum for last night's Brewers SP Jimmy Nelson. Happened when he dived back to 1st base after banging single off LF wall in the top of the 5th. He is out for the year.  

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

Nelson is huge loss for them -- before the injury, they had a very good top 3 starters, a bullpen with a lot of guys with sub-3.00 ERAs, a power closer and a lot of thump in their offense. Of course, if they keep scoring 8 runs in the 2nd inning, starting pitching may not be an issue for them.

[ ]

In reply to by billybucks

in ipad we trust. fwiw, chase anderson has slight "reverse splits" going in favor of him being better vs lefties, but it's rather close. plus, the wind is blowing in/around the OF and schwarb's not that great of an OF'r (but that didn't stop happ from being in CF yesterday). *shrug* sitting 2 days in a row is weird.

montgomery threw 26 pitches, left the bases loaded, and no runs scored. hell of a 1st inning.

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

why the hell isn't anyone up in the pen... ...and montgomery's day is done. holy crap that was turrible. grimm? we're doing grimm with 0 out and men on 2nd/3rd? alright. ...and grimm balks in a run. man on 3rd, 0 out. HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA. yeah. ...and a single, run scores. neat. ...and another single, men on 1st/2nd, still 0 outs. ...and a walk, loaded, 0 out. ...and a 2 run double...still 0 outs. i'm done.

Brewers are playing with house money -- nobody expected them to still be in it at this point. Oh, well -- Cubs will still be in first place tomorrow morning.

I'm listening to the radio and getting real tired of Ron's "it's just another one of those days for the Cubs..."
There have been waaay too many of these days.

cubs must have really pissed off the brewers because they are not holding back at all on scoring or taking extra bases.

rob z's first MLB hit. good for him. scwharber pinch hits and will probably be left in to play LF. i hope he hits a 14 run HR.

Brutal week for the Cubs. Hard to see them advancing far in October, assuming they get there. Can we end the Grimm experiment, please?

[ ]

In reply to by VirginiaPhil

Grimm is out of options next season anyway. Coin flip on him being non-tendered. No biggie there, either way. On the other hand, I hope everyone is owning their stance from 2012-2014 on Chris Rusin, who is now a better reliever than even Brian Duensing has been. Pitcher development. It happens when it does. Or, sometimes, it never happens.

[ ]

In reply to by Dolorous Jon Lester

Grimm may be worth that $2ish million just for the matter that relief pitchers fluctuate year to year. I know it's been since 2015 when he was pretty darn good, but he's bound to have another good year, and especially knowing he'll be pitching in 2018 to earn his first free agent contract, I think he might be worth the gamble to keep him around another year. Of course I'm typing this assuming we upgrade Koji to someone much more reliable and consistent. If Grimm is the 7th or 8th BP option, I'm okay with that.

[ ]

In reply to by Dolorous Jon Lester

The only players presently on the Cubs MLB 40-man roster who will be free-agents after next season (post-2018) are Hector Rondon and Justin Wilson. Also, the Cubs hold a $6.25M 2019 club option on Pedro Strop (or else $500K buy-out post-2018).

The Cubs could possibly non-tender Justin Grimm on 12/2, but I would say they will probably tender Grimm a 2018 contract for about $2M (which would be non-guaranteed) so that they can bring him to Spring Training (Grimm would be able to request salary arbitration if he isn't happy with the $$$ offer), and then they can decide prior to 2018 Opening Day whether to keep him on the Opening Day 25-man roster (which would guarantee the contract 100%), or release him and pay him 45 days salary (about 25% of his salary) as termination pay.

The Cubs will probably also tender 2018 contracts to Hector Rondon, Justin Wilson, and Tommy LaStella (like Grimm, all three are arbitration-eligible post-2017), although there is an outside chance that one or more of the three could be non-tendered if the Cubs don't want to pay the player more than the Cubs feel he is worth and they don't want to risk losing in an arbitration hearing. (A trade is also a possibility).  

The most-likely 12/2 non-tender candidate is recently-acquired OF Leonys Martin (who otherwise can't be cut more than 20%, meaning the Cubs would have to offer him at least $4M for 2018 if he is tendered a contract). If they project him as a potential useful piece in 2018, the Cubs would probably still non-tender Martin, but then they would try and re-sign him to a 2018 minor league contract (with an NRI to Spring Training) for substantially less than $4M (maybe $1M - 1.5M).

Another very likely non-tender candidate (if he is still on the MLB 40-man roster on 12/2) is IF-OF Mike Freeman, although he could get dropped from the 40 in November.

Felix Pena and Rob Zastryzny are also 12/2 non-tender candidates (especially Pena), with the Cubs offering the non-tendered player a 2018 minor league contract for "split-contract 40-man roster money" (the same minor league "split salary" the player would have received if he had remained on the MLB 40-man roster, somewhere in the vicinity of $100K, maybe a little bit more to induce the player to re-sign) plus an NRI to Spring Training. .

Non-tendering a player on 12/2 allows a club to remove the player from the MLB 40-man roster without exposing the player to waivers or to the Rule 5 Draft (if the player agrees to sign a minor league contract). Of course, the player can always just decline to re-sign and instead sign with another MLB club. That's why a club has to think twice and maybe have a deal in place before non-tendering a player.

[ ]

In reply to by crunch

The worst thing a relief pitcher can do is surrender both walks - AND - home runs, and Grimm has been doing that all season. 

As is the case with most relievers who are having a bad season, poor command is the primary cause. Of course sometimes a reliever is clearly washed-up (like Koji Uehara) or has a physical problem or a mechanical issue that affects his performance, but command (or lack of it) is usually why a relief pitcher who has had success in the past is having a bad season. 

And everything could be completely different next year. Or not. 

[ ]

In reply to by Arizona Phil

One of the simple things about baseball that it took me way way way too long to figure out is that only the elite relievers are good every year and that the vast majority of relievers have good years and bad years. I can't recall any recent examples where a Cubs reliever sucked for half a season and then turned good for the remainder of the year. I couple that with the idea that the first 50-60 games of the season is the period over which a manager comes to realize what he has for a particular year, and I am left to conclude that it's been half a season that Joe has run Grimm out there time after time after time and watched him suck and suck and suck. There is no reason to think that anything will change for the remainder of this season with Grimm. It seems to me Joe had (at least) two choices....keep throwing different guys out there trying to find the 2 or 3 guys who were going to be good this year, or keep throwing Grimm out there hoping he'd get better. Joe chose plan B and for whatever reason (stubborn-ness comes first to mind) has chosen to stick with it despite dismal returns. I trust Grimm is pitching as well as he can, which is badly. Time for Joe to up his own game a bit.

Rough couple of days. Glad they had built a 5-game lead. Get a win tomorrow and move on. By the way -- what the hell is up with Joe's hair? Did he get a big Grecian Formula deal?

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.