Cubs MLB Roster

Cubs Organizational Depth Chart
40-Man Roster Info

40 players are on the MLB RESERVE LIST (roster is full), plus one player is on the 60-DAY IL 

26 players on MLB RESERVE LIST are ACTIVE, twelve players are on OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT to minors, one player is on the 15-DAY IL, and one player is on the 10-DAY IL

Last updated 3-28-2024
 
* bats or throws left
# bats both

PITCHERS: 13
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Jose Cuas
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Mark Leiter Jr
* Luke Little
Julian Merryweather
Hector Neris 
* Drew Smyly
* Justin Steele
* Jordan Wicks

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

INFIELDERS: 7
* Michael Busch 
Garrett Cooper
Nico Hoerner
Nick Madrigal
* Miles Mastrobuoni
Christopher Morel
Dansby Swanson

OUTFIELDERS: 4
* Cody Bellinger 
# 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 

10-DAY IL: 1 
Patrick Wisdom, INF 

15-DAY IL: 1 
Jameson Taillon, P 

60-DAY IL: 1 
Caleb Kilian, P 

 



 

Minor League Rosters
Rule 5 Draft 
Minor League Free-Agents

Cubs Prospects

Who Will Lead the Cubbie Revolution?

If topics among major league teams trended like twitter, "building the farm system" would certainly be near the top. All the new GM's and some of the old ones alluded to it one way or another as the key to sustained success and of course, there's a lot of truth to it. But there's also a lot of truth to the famous phrase, "it's easier said than done".  For the new Cubs in charge, they'll be taking over a farm system that will likely rank in the lower third as an organization in overall talent that many of the self-proclaimed experts believe has lots of depth and marginal major league talent, but very light on the upper tier players. Unfortunately, it's those upper tier players that the Cubs are sorely in need of at that moment as they try to reverse a 3-year trend of losing while in the midst of saying goodbye to their aging core of players. Not only do the Cubs have to find(or soon find) replacements for the likes of Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Kosukue Fukudome, Derrek Lee, Alfonso Soriano, Marlon Byrd and so on, but they have to find players that are cumulatively better than those in order to improve. Just finding the equivalent isn't going to get the Cubs back into the division hunt. Personally, I don't see those players in the Cubs farm system right now and certainly not anyone ready in the next year or two. So to me that means having to dive into free agency and/or be willing to trade some of that depth for a few stars (much like the much aligned Garza trade last year) if the Cubs intend to compete next year and the subsequent years. Now if they want to go into a full 3-year rebuild, more power to them, but I don't see the Cubs taking that path. To me, it's identifying whom on this list and subsequent lists are going to be the average or above average major league contributors and not just roster filler, protecting those players and thus making everyone else expendable if a trade presents itself.

Before we get to the rankings, I like to share this bit of insight from Bill James via Joe Posnanski. Something to keep in mind that not all top 10 lists are the same.

A few years ago, Bill James told me something I had never thought about before but now think about all the time, especially after trades like this one: Every single baseball team has prospects. Every one. The best teams. The worst teams. The smartest teams. The dumbest teams. They all have prospects. Not only that — every team has enough prospects to fill out a Top 10 list. You never see a team’s “Top 7 Prospects” list because the team did not have enough to fill out 10. No. They all have 10.

To the list...

I Guess the Cubs Really Want Garza

UPDATE #2: Make it Archer, Guyer, Lee, Chirinos, Sam Fuld for Garza, Fernando Perez and and a minor league pitcher. Nothing is official yet according to Morosi.

 

UPDATE: Levine says it's Archer, Guyer, Lee, Chirinos, Sam Fuld for Garza, and a minor league outfielder and pitcher. I can't really evaluate the trade till we know the names the Cubs are getting.


Bruce Miles is reporting that the Cubs will send Chris Archer, Brandon Guyer, Hak-Ju Lee and Robinson Chirinos for Matt Garza, with possible other pieces still being involved. I realize as a fan of the Cubs I'm probably a little bias towards their own prospects, but that sounds like as good or better package than what the Royals just got for Zack Greinke.

Now I realize Greinke costs more than Garza at the moment, but in terms of talents, it's not even close. I suppose there's the worries over Greinke's social anxiety issues and whether he would approve a trade to the Cubs, but he seemed to just be interested in trying to win.

On the other hand, they're just prospects and only Archer and maybe Lee have much of a chance of being better than league average players. Folks and myself have freaked out before on trade packages including prospects to eventually discover those prospects end doing nothing. But man, it's quite the stomach punch if they do end up being good.

Cubs Prospect List-mania 2010

For the fourth year running I go through the various prospect lists. I'm trying to stick the more established ones and there are even more lists available at Wiklifield. Scout.com didn't seem to put out a Cubs list this year or has yet to and I'm not waiting any longer. Click on the image for the link to the original article.

Baseball Prospectus Top 11 Cubs' Prospects

    ''5-Star Prospects''
  1. Josh Vitters
  2. Starlin Castro
    ''4-Star Prospects''
  3. Hak-Ju Lee
  4. Brett Jackson
    ''3-Star Prospects''
  5. Andrew Cashner
  6. Jay Jackson
  7. Chris Carpenter
  8. Chris Archer
  9. Kyler Burke
  10. Ryan Flaherty
  11. John Gaub

Kevin Goldstein puts Chris Huseby, Logan Watkins, Dae-Eun Rhee and Darwin Barney as 12-15. You can see past lists at Wiklified.

Cubs News Round-Up: Ben Sheets, Spring Training, Top 10 Prospect List, Zambrano Interview

- The Hardball Times has put up their top 10 Cubs' Prospects:

  1. Starlin Castro
  2. Josh Vitters
  3. Brett Jackson
  4. Jay Jackson
  5. Hak-Ju Lee
  6. Kyler Burke
  7. Andrew Cashner
  8. Chris Archer
  9. Chris Carpenter
  10. Ryan Flaherty

Archer's not a name you see on a lot of Top 10 or even Top 20 lists so far.

Recent comments

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    I think if you had ranked players by how much the team could ill afford to have them miss significant time, Steele would be right at the top of the list.

  • crunch (view)

    steele MRI on friday.  counsell expects an IL stint.

    no current plans for his rotation replacement.

  • hellfrozeover (view)

    I would say also in the bright side column is Busch looked pretty good overall at the plate. Alzolay…man, that hurts but most of the time he’s not giving up a homer to that guy. To me the worst was almonte hanging that pitch to Garcia. He hung another one to the next hitter too and got away with it on an 0-1. 

  • crunch (view)

    amaya blocked like 6-8 of smyly's pitches in the dirt very cleanly...not even an exaggeration, smyly threw a ton of pitches bouncing in tonight.

    neris looking like his old self was a relief (no pun), too.

  • TarzanJoeWallis (view)

    In looking for bright spots the defense was outstanding tonight. The “stars” are going to need to shine quite a bit brighter than they did tonight offensively though for this to be a successful season.

  • Eric S (view)

    Good baseball game. Hopefully Steele is pitching again in April (but I’m not counting on it). 

  • crunch (view)

    boo.

  • crunch (view)

    smyly to face the 2/3/4 hitters with a man on 2nd in extras.

    this doesn't seem like a 8 million dollar managerial decision.

  • crunch (view)

    i 100% agree with you, but i dunno how jed wants to run things.  the default is delay.  i would choose brown.

    like hellfrozeover says, could be smyly since he's technically fresh and stretched.

    anyway, on a pure talent basis....brown is the best option.

  • Childersb3 (view)

    Use pitchers when you believe they're good. Don't plan their clock.

    I'm sorry. I'm simply anti-clock/contract management. Play guys when they show real MLB potential talent.

    If Brown hadn't been hurt with the Lat Strain he would've gotten the call, and not Wick.

    Give him a chance. 

    But Wesneski probably gets it