No Steele, Thielbar, Cabrera as Cubs Announce 2026 Wild Card Roster
The Cubs have officially announced their Wild Card roster, which features 14 position players and 12 pitchers. Justin Steele was not included among the latter group, which is not at all surprising, but Caleb Thielbar and Edward Cabrera being left off is mildly interesting. In their roster projection for The Athletic, Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney had those latter two among 13 pitchers.
The Athletic did not list Colin Rea, who made the cut in the bullpen, nor did they have Gabriel Arias as an extra infielder. I’d have liked to see Justin Dean as a situational baserunner, a role the Cubs have often utilized in the postseason, but that’s splitting hairs.
The decision to go with 12 pitchers was influenced by the presence of so many multi-inning “relievers,” not to mention the short series. This also probably indicates that Kevin Gausman is good to go, perhaps as the Game 2 starter.
You can see the full roster below.
| Pitchers (12)
12 – Kevin Gausman, RHP 16 – Matthew Boyd, LHP 18 – Shota Imanaga, LHP 19 – David Peterson, LHP 25 – Clay Holmes, RHP 33 – Ryan Rolison, LHP 38 – Aaron Civale, RHP 48 – Daniel Palencia, RHP 53 – Colin Rea, RHP 56 – Ryan Zeferjahn, RHP 71 – Jacob Webb, RHP 72 – Javier Assad, RHP
Catchers (2) 9 – Miguel Amaya 15 – Carson Kelly
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Infielders (6)
2 – Nico Hoerner 3 – Alex Bregman 7 – Dansby Swanson 29 – Michael Busch (L) 43 – Gabriel Arias 75 – Pedro Ramírez (S)
Outfielders (5) 4 – Pete Crow-Armstrong (L) 8 – Ian Happ (S) 20 – Michael Conforto (L) 27 – Seiya Suzuki 55 – Tyrone Taylor
Infielder/Outfielder (1) 6 – Matt Shaw
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