NEWSLETTER
Today, together with teams around the league, the Chicago Cubs submitted to MLB their initial 60-man roster for the resumption of Spring Training … but they aren’t going to announce it today?
That’s the early word:
Cubs expected to announce their 60-man pool Monday
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) June 28, 2020
Many teams around baseball have already announced their rosters, but the Cubs (and Brewers (among others, possibly)) are electing to wait until tomorrow.
I can’t immediately think of the reason for this, since the initial list had to be finalized and submitted today. Travel related? COVID-19 testing related? Opt-out related? Could be that last one. Then again, I read that players can later decide to opt-out, so it’s not necessarily like this is an indication that someone is on the fence and the Cubs are giving it one more day. Then again again, maybe the Cubs don’t want to announce the list if they know someone *is* on the fence? Give that person a little grace if they decide to opt-out, and instead just announce the list tomorrow without that name? I truly don’t know what the rationale would be. This is all uncharted waters.
In any case. The names will come tomorrow if they don’t trickle out sooner.
By way of reminder, the players will head either to Wrigley Field for Spring Training Part Two, or will head to South Bend for alternate training. The group at Wrigley Field are your presumed contenders to win a job on the Opening Day 30-man roster, while the group in South Bend will serve as the start of the alternate group, from which the Cubs can later draw replacements as necessary, and can also train up some youngsters and provide game action for rehabbing players. It’s best to kind of think of that site as your “minor leagues” this year, as sad as that is.
Teams can add additional names to the list later on (and can remove guys from the 60-man group later, though you have to proceed through the normal channels to do so, which means if you try to remove a non-40-man player from your alternate site group, you risk losing that player). So whatever list the Cubs submitted can be changed in some ways.
Maybe it’ll leak out later today. I’ll share if so, but we may not hear until tomorrow. Until then, here’s Bryan’s take on what he thinks the roster could look like.
