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 

 



 

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Cubs Game Recaps

Game 75 Recap: Cubs 1, Mets 0

Quick Work

Box Score Play Log Game Graphs

 

W - Hendricks (3-4),  MLB's average length of game, magic.

L - Niese (3-8), that Home Run Big Apple thingy, losing your game summary right before publishing.

S - Motte (3)

 

Things to Take from This Game

1.  Hendricks with a good outing.

Kyle Hendricks pitched 6 efficient, scoreless innings, giving up just one walk and three hits. He struck out six with lots of movement - if not always command - on all of his pitches. Other than a one-out double that was quickly pitched around, he wasn't in trouble at all. The defense also was flawless, save a bad route and awkward catch by Fowler.

2. The offense continues to struggle.

There isn't much to say about the offensive performance.  Castro walked twice.  Bryant had a hit and a walk. The scoring came from a no-doubt double by Szczur that scored Bryant. We loaded the bases, once, so there was that...

 

3. The bullpen delivered.

Rondon, Strop, and Motte each had convincing scoreless innings to preserve a 1-0 lead.

 

The 2 hour and 22 minute, happy details,  below

Game 6 Recap - Dempster Left Defenseless

I had most of it written Wednesday, but didn't have time to finish it up until tonight. Might as well put it out into the world.

Box Score | Highlights

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9   R H E
DBacks 0
0 2
0
3 0 0
1 1
  6
12
0
Cubs 0 0
0
2
0 0 1
1
0   4
6
3

The Good: Ramirez and Soriano hit home runs, Marlon Byrd had two more hits today and Fukudome got on-base three times out of the leadoff spot and could have been a fourth if not for Chris Young's first amazing catch of the day. I think that about covers that section.

The Bad: ...started in the third inning. Willie Bloomquist continued to annoy himself to Cubs fans by singling and then easily stealing a base. Chris Young hit a liner just to the left of center that Marlon Byrd decided he needed to try and emulate Young's glove witchcraft and completely whiffed on. Bloomquist was gonna score anyway on the play if Byrd lets it drop, but now the ball is careening towards center with Soriano rushing over and the speedy Young easily going to make it to third. Soriano though fumbles the ball and then skips the relay throw and as the Diamondback announcer called it, "a little league home run".  During the play, I thought Byrd missed it by a mile, but the replay looked like he just missed it by a whisker. And it did happen with 2 outs, which is when you should try and take those chances in my opinion.

Game 5 Quick Recap - Cashner is King

Box Score | HighlightsFangraphs WP chart

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9   R H E
DBacks 0
0 1
0
0 0 3
0 1
  5
7
1
Cubs 0 2
2
0
0 0 2
0
x   6
10
0

The Gist: It seems the weekday recaps are gonna be a little harder to get to for me. Andrew Cashner got his first major league start and threw quite well except for a 3rd inning home run to Ryan Roberts. He made it into the 6th on just 72 pitches (43 for strikes) and 10 groundballs to 5 flyballs.  Then the bad news...he felt something in his shoulder and left the game with a 4-1 lead and went for an MRI, which we should hear the results tomorrow.

Game 4 Quick Recap - Wells Runs Dry for DBacks Offense

Box Score | HighlightsFangraphs WP chart

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9   R H E
DBacks 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0   1 8 0
Cubs 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 x   4 8 1

The Gist: Wells didn't quite pitch as well as he did all spring and was uncharacterstically wild, but held the DBacks to just 6 hits, and only one of the extra base variety, that being a leadoff home run to Willie Bloomquist of all people. Geovany Soto showed off his healthy shoulder gunning down Justin Upton on a steal attempt and Miguel Montero on a wild pitch that didn't bounce very far away. The bullpen locked down the last 3 innings, even with Q-Ball and Kirk Gibson battling for over-Manager of the Year honors. First, the Cubs bring in Sean Marshall who is perfectly awesome versus lefties and righties to face Geraldo Parra. After getting him out, Gibson went to the righty Xavier Nady and Q-Ball countered for no good reason with Marcus Mateo and Gibson countered with lefty Juan Miranda who did single. Mateo retired the next batter and Q-Ball went to the pen again and John Grabow to get Kelly Johnson.

Game 3 Recap - Garza Discovers What Being a Cub Is Like

Box Score | Video

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9   R H E
Pirates 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 2   5 16 0
Cubs 0 0 0 2 1 1 0 0 0   4 9 1

The Good: Let's start with Matt Garza's first start as a Cub. It wasn't perfection, frankly it was odd. The Pirates knocked 12 hits off him, all 12 being of the single variety and a handful of the pure 'effin luck variety including a check swing hit and run and jammed dribbler through the right side. Garza matched those 12 hits with 12 strikeouts though on 0 walks and threw 80 of his 106 pitches for strikes. I'm feeling confident the earned runs will look a lot beter if he can maintain that strikeout to walk ratio the rest of the year. Honestly it was a pretty epic start, if not for the seeing eye singles and some bad defense, most notably Ramirez botching a double play with a bad throw.

Game 1 Rec...Aw Crap, We Lost to The Pirates

Box Score | Video

The Good: Fukudome got on-base 3 times out of the leadoff spot, Castro went 3 for 5, Pena got on-base twice with an RBI and and multi-hit games by Ramirez and Barney as well. Ramirez also just missed a 3-run game tying homer in the 7th. Dempster looked like a good pitcher for the first 4 innings and did strike out 7 on the game. Castro made an awesome dive to turn a double play to save Samardzija's ass. Some aggressive baserunning by Castro and DeJesus helped score the first run. The team pounded out 10 singles.

The Bad: No extra-base hits and just two walks by the offense, Barney got thrown out by Ryan Doumit and there was the 5th inning. After a leadoff single by Ryan Doumit, Dempster faces Garrett Jones. A hit and run is called and Jones fouls it off. Next pitch, no hit and run and a chopper to third that Aramis had a play at second base on and never takes a look and tosses it to first. He probably doesn't have a double play there, but you should always go after the lead runner of course. Then a walk to Ronny Cedeno which is a feat in of itself and maybe Dempster isn't so keen to pitch out of the zone against Cedeno if first base is occupied. Bob Brenly attempts to justify this by saying that it now sets up a possible double play with the pitcher up. It also sets up an sacrifice attempt and two runners in scoring position with the top of the order coming up. Tabata walks and then Neil Walker comes up. The count goes 3-2 and Dempster throws a splitter that Walker fouls off. Even if he keeps that it play, it may go for a single, but at worst it's a tie game. For some inexplicable reason, Dempster goes fastball next time and judging by the replay didn't miss his spot by too much and leaves one right in the lefty happy zone. Blame Soto, blame Dempster, blame Mark Riggins, but sweet jeebus was that a terrible pitch.

After two more walks in the 6th by Dempster and what looked like he was losing a little velocity, Q-Ball decides to keep him out in the 7th claiming that he thought he was fine and Dempster earned the right to tell him if he was done. He also cited that he liked how he finished up the 6th with Cedeno. *Facepalm*

Jeff Samardzija pitched an inning with the game still within 3 runs.

Cubs Beat Rockies in 11; Zambrano Getting Recast

Aramis Ramirez blasted a one-out, two-run homer in the bottom of the 11th to lead the Cubs to a 4-2 win over the Rockies Monday night at Wrigley. Lou Piniella's post-game press conference, the main topic of which was a player who never even appeared in the game, was at least as newsworthy as the main event.

First about the game:

The Cubs had leads of 1-0 and 2-1 courtesy of run-scoring singles by Aramis Ramirez and Koyie Hill, before the Rockies tied the game in the 8th inning on a single and three walks, two by John Grabow and one by Carlos Marmol. Marmol redeemed himself by inducing an inning-ending double play, nicely initiated by Starlin Castro, to preserve the tie. 

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.