The news — made official Sunday — that Justin Steele will be lost for the season forces a reassessment of pitching plans on Chicago’s North Side. Steele will undergo flexor tendon and ulnar collateral ligament surgery.
This had not been a great opening month for Steele, who was carrying a 4.76 ERA in four starts when he went down. Nonetheless, given Steele’s status as the Cubs’ ace entering the season, his loss will force manager Craig Counsell and the team’s front office to reconsider options for a rotation that entered the season leaning heavily on the threesome of Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Steele.
The importance of Cubs’ plans for picking up Steele’s workload is only intensified by the team’s status as early front-runners in the NL Central. The Cubs enter play on April 14 with an 11-7 record as the only above-.500 team in their division.
That status is made more impressive by the fact that they are immersed in the toughest part of their schedule, a first month that has seen them almost exclusively deal with expected contenders from the NL West and AL West.
By the time that stretch ends next week, they will be through with the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers and Athletics, and will be half done with possibly the best non-West team in baseball, the Philadelphia Phillies.
Essentially, Counsell along with President Jed Hoyer and GM Carter Hawkins have three options to fill the void left by Steele’s loss. Here’s a look at the short-term likelihood of each of those three options, along with the benefits and drawbacks of each approach.
3 approaches the Cubs can take to replace Justin Steele
Option 1: Rely on incumbent starter Colin Rea (50%)
For the immediate future, this is almost certainly the path Counsell and the front office will take, if only because it is the path of least resistance and least cost.
A 34-year-old free agent signed in January following his release by the Brewers, Rea has made four appearances for the Cubs, including filling Steele’s rotation spot Sunday evening against the Dodgers. He seized the opportunity, allowing just one run while striking out five in three and two-thirds innings.
In nine innings of work to date, mostly as a bullpen spare part, Rea has allowed only that one earned run.
From Counsell’s standpoint, Rea also has the advantage of familiarity. He pitched two seasons for Counsell’s Brewers, although his best year — a 12-6 record over 168 innings in 2024 — came following Counsell’s arrival in Chicago.
For Cubs fans, the lingering question is how much they can count on Rea over the course of the full season. There is, after all, a reason why (despite his record in Milwaukee) he failed to crack the club’s rotation coming out of spring training.
And, for whatever credit you attach to his Sunday showing in Los Angeles, it still lasted less than four innings. Cubs fans, who have a lengthy record of having been burned by expectations, will be skeptical about whether a pitcher they have viewed as a stopgap can maintain his usefulness across a full 30-game starting load.
Option 2: Make a trade for a starter (35%)
This is the option most of the team’s fan base wants Hoyer, Hawkins and Counsell to pursue. And they have a definite target in mind: Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara.
Alcantara, who missed all of last season recuperating from his own arm surgery, appears to have established that he is fully back. He is 2-0 in his first three starts for the Marlins, working a steady five innings each time.
Whether the quality is there might be a separate question. Alcantara has fanned a dozen in those 15 innings, but he has also allowed eight earned runs, working out to a 4.70 ERA that is a point and a half above his pre-injury performance.
If you are a Cubs front office executive and your reports tell you that the newly repaired Alcantara may in fact be a diminished product, it may make sense to shy away from him.
Velocity doesn’t appear to be an issue. Alcantara is averaging 97.4 mph on his four-seamer, off only fractionally from the 98.0 he averaged in 2023, his last pre-injury season. But there are concerns: the average exit velocity of an Alcantara pitch this year is 91 mph, about four mph faster than his pre-injury average.
If the Cubs do decide to pursue Alcantara — or any other available trade piece for that matter — they have attractive players to offer a building team like the Marlins.
Four of the game’s top prospects — pitcher Cade Horton, catcher Moises Ballesteros and outfielders Owen Caissie and Kevin Alcantara — are playing at Triple-A Iowa. All are viewed as major league-ready either right now or in the short-term future.
Option 3: Promote a top pitching prospect (15%)
Alternatively, the Cubs could do the simplest thing and call up Horton themselves. A 2022 first-round draft pick out of the University of Oklahoma, Horton has a 1.23 ERA in his first two starts at Iowa this year. The team’s No. 2 prospect, he would be a hard thrower on a staff that lacks a hard thrower aside from up-and-down rookie Ben Brown.
There are, however, those within the organization unsure whether Horton is ready to assume the responsibilities that come with being a rotation starter on a contending team. His walk rate is an early concern; he’s averaging one per inning at Triple-A.
There are other call-up options. Jordan Wicks, with 17 major league starts under his belt, is also at Triple-A and is off to a good start, with a 3.55 ERA in three games.
Javier Assad, who did well in regular rotation work last season (3.73 ERA in 147 innings), may be the more likely option once he is pronounced recovered from an oblique strain that has thus far sentenced him to the IL. Expectations are that Assad will get a couple of minor league starts this month, and if those go well, he could be ready by early May.
While nobody’s ever thought of Assad as the next Justin Steele, he does have a winning (14-11) record in the bigs, and if healthy, probably would have been a rotation option from the get-go this spring.