Cubs Minor Leagues

Baseball America is reporting that the Cubs have signed four more free-agents to 2017 minor league contracts.

Two of the players are former Cubs minor leaguers, and two have varying degrees of big league experience with other MLB clubs.

1/6 UPDATE #2: Baseball America is reporting that the Cubs have signed 32-year old switch-hitting catcher Carlos Corporan to a 2017 minor league contract. He will almost certainly get an NRI to Spring Training.

Corporan has considerable MLB experience (232 games and 780 PA over the course of six seasons with MIL, HOU, and TEX), and he will battle Ali Solis (signed by the Cubs to a 2017 minor league contract last month) for the veteran catcher slot at AAA Iowa and for the Chicago Cubs unofficial #3 catcher gig (would be called up to Chicago if anything happens to Willson Contreras or Miguel Montero). Corporan has hit 218/280/342 over the course of his MLB career (4+019 MLB Service Time).

A native of Puerto Rico, Corporan was selected by the Milwaukee Brewers out of Lake City CC in the 12th round of the 2003 draft. He is a solid defensive catcher, but he struggled mightily at the plate in 2016 (hitting just 197/246/323 in 57 AAA games), first at Durham (TB) and then at New Orleans (MIA), getting released both times. However, Corporan is currently hitting a robust 321/379/425 for Carolina in Liga de Beisbol Profesional Roberto Clemente (the Puerto Rican winter league), and is 3rd in the PWL in hitting, 5th in OBP, and 6th in doubles.

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1/6 UPDATE #1: Baseball America is reporting that the Cubs have signed 3B-1B Chris Dominguez to a 2017 minor league contract. I would think that he will probably get an NRI to Spring Training, and then will provide depth at AAA Iowa.

Now 30 years old, Dominguez was selected by the San Francisco in the 3rd round of the 2009 draft out of the U. of Louisville. He hit 21 HR and drove in 101 runs in his first full season (Lo-A Augusta) in 2010 and was ranked one of the Giants Top 10 prospects by Baseball America and was rated as having the organization's top infield arm going into the 2011 season, but he never reached his potential, spending the past five seasons in AAA with San Franicisco (2012-14), Cincinnati (2015), and Boston (2016).

Dominguez hit 241/275/439 at Pawtucket in 2016 with 13 HR in 77 games (298 PA), missing considerable time with an oblique strain. He has hit just .175 with two HR in two "cups of coffee" in the big leagues (eight games with the Giants in 2014, and 14 games with the Reds in 2015).   


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ORIGINAL POST (12/24): Baseball America is reporting that the Cubs have signed five more free-agents to 2017 minor league contracts.

All five will likely receive an NRI to Spring Training with the big club.

One of the players is a former Cubs minor leaguer, and the other four have varying degrees of big league experience with other MLB clubs.   

The Cubs have announced Minor League Field Staff Assignments for 2017:

12/14 UPDATE: Baseball America reports that the Cubs have re-signed three of the four players who were non-tendered on 12/2 to 2017 minor league contracts: LHP Gerardo Concepcion, RHP Conor Mullee (claimed off waivers from NYY last month), and LHP Zac Rosscup.

All three will presumably receive an NRI to Spring Training. 

The fourth non-tendered player (3B Christian Villanueva) did not re-sign with the Cubs, so he will probably try his luck with a new organization (could be seeking a major league deal). Villanueva would be blocked by both Kris Bryant and Jeimer Candelario if he were to remain with the Cubs. 

Concepcion was non-tendered so that the Cubs would not have to pay him a $600,000 minor league "split salary" in 2017, Mullee missed the last half of the 2016 season with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (may have undergone surgery), and Rosscup underwent shoulder surgery last March. 

By non-tendering Concepcion, Mullee, and Rosscup and then re-signing them to minor league contracts, the Cubs were able to remove the trio from the MLB 40-man roster without exposing the players to waivers, and by waiting a week to re-sign them, the Cubs did not risk losing them in the Rule 5 Draft. 

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ORIGINAL POST (12/13) - Baseball America is reporting that the Cubs have signed four free-agent pitchers to 2017 minor league contracts.

All four will likely receive an NRI to Spring Training with the big club.

Three of the names are probably somewhat familiar, as two of them have pitched in the big leagues with other MLB organizations, and a third was in the Cubs minor league system last season. 

As a practical matter the four were officially signed after the Rule 5 Draft so that they would not be eligible for selection, but the contracts were likely negotiated sometime earlier in the off-season.   

As things stand right now...

RHP Barret Loux (acquired from TEX as the PTBNL in the Geovany Soto trade in 2012) and RHP Marcelo Carreno (acquired from DET for INF

After 14 seasons, the Cubs have apparently decided to leave Boise, and so they will now be looking for a new advanced Short Season (SS-A) affiliate in the Northwest League (NWL) to replace the Hawks. Salem-Keizer and Eugene would be their two most-likely destinations (presuming the Cubs opt to remain in the NWL), since both have an expiring Player Development Contract (PDC) with their current MLB partner. (The Cubs had a PDC with Eugene prior to moving to Boise). 

The Cubs have already renewed their PDC with the AA Tennessee Smokies through the 2018 season, and their PDC with AAA Iowa extends through 2016. But there are three Cubs PDCs set to expire after the 2014 season: 

The VSL Cubs begin their 68-game 2014 season tomorrow morning with a game against the VSL Phillies.

Dillon Maples, Jen-Ho Tseng, Felix Pena, and Ivan Pineyro threw "live" BP this morning, as Cubs minor leaguers had their first full-squad work-out at the Under Armour Performance Center at Riverview Park in Mesa, AZ.

2014 CUBS MINOR LEAGUE CAMP ROSTERS (last updated 3-6-2014):

10/2 UPDATE: LHP Rob Zastryzny (Cubs 2013 2nd round draft pick) has been added to the Cubs AZ Instructional League roster.

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9/19 UPDATE: Carrie Muskat posted the updated 2013 Cubs AZ Instructional League roster yesterday at MLBBlogs Network, and that roster shows that RHP C. J. Edwards and OF Kevin Encarnacion have been deleted from last week's AZIL preliminary roster, and 16-year old OF Eloy Jimenez (the top-rated international prospect from 2013) has been added. 

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Here is the preliminary 2013 Cubs Arizona Instructional League (AZIL) roster (subject to change):