Age, Positions, Type of Acquisition and Other Breakdowns of the 40 Man Roster

Each major league team can carry as many as 40 players on their official roster. I put together some counts of how the Cubs 40 man roster looks. Let’s start with how the Cubs were acquired. We all know about the Arrieta trade and the Heyward and Lester free agent signings and the Bryant and Schwarber draft picks, but what about the rest?

9 of the current players were drafted in the amateur draft
10 players were signed as free agents
16 have been acquired via the trade
4 have been signed via the International signing process
And 1 was drafted in the Rule 5 draft*

(Caleb Smith was actually acquired in a trade after being drafted via Rule 5, for this count he’s considered a trade. Hector Rondon is the Cubs officially drafted via Rule 5)

Of course even the players acquired in trade and signed in free agency were drafted at one time. There are eight current players that came to the majors via the international signing process. Here is draft number of the other 32 players acquired in the amateur draft’

Top 10 picks (2, 4, 6, 9)
Picked 11 to 50 (11, 14, 36, 41, 43, 46)
Picked 51 to 100 (55, 57, 65, 67, 68, 74, 75, 75, 84)
Picked 101 to 200 (159, 160, 162, 166, 184)
Picked after 200 (204, 243, 264, 266, 276, 434, 673, 1464)

That would be Carl Edwards Jr. who was picked one thousand four hundred and sixty-forth.

But it is really all about pitching, right? Here are the primary positions of the current 40 Cubs:

24 Pitcher
3 Catcher
1 First Baseman
3 Second Baseman
2 Third Baseman
1 Short Stop
3 Left Fielders
2 Center Fielders
1 Right Fielder

Of the 24 pitchers seven of them are left handed. Of the 16 position players, three are switch hitters, six bat left handed, and seven bat right. Only four of those 16 throw left handed.

The Cubs are also a very young team with half of them being born since 1990. Here is the breakdown by the year each player was born grouped by decade:

1970’s 2 (1975, 1978)
1980’s 18 (1981, 1983(2), 1984, 1985(3), 1986, 1988(3), 1989(7))
1990’s 20 (1990(4), 1991(6), 1992(4), 1993(3), 1994(3))

I also found it very interesting how evenly the birth month is for these 40 players

January – 4
February – 4
March – 5
April – 3
May – 3
June – 1
July – 7
August – 5
September – 3
October – 1
November -2
December – 2

Two Cubs share the same birth date, but not the same year. Matt Szczur was born July 20, 1989 and Duane Underwood was born July 20, 1994 and is the youngest Cub by three months as Albert Almora Jr. was born April 16, 1994.

Happy Birthday to the four February babies, all pitchers by the way: Brett Anderson (Feb 1), Brian Duensing (Feb 22), Felix Pena (Feb 25), and Hector Rondon (Feb 26)!