Cardinals Select Nelson Velázquez, Recall Jimmy Crooks
The Cardinals announced that they have selected the contract of outfielder Nelson Velázquez and recalled catcher Jimmy Crooks. The 40-man roster has had a vacancy since left-hander Jared Shuster was designated for assignment a couple of weeks ago, so Velázquez fills that spot. In terms of the active roster, infielder César Prieto and catcher Yohel Pozo have been optioned to Triple-A Memphis.
Velázquez, 27, signed a minor league deal with the Cards in the offseason. He put up a monster .357/.449/.667 line during spring training but nonetheless got sent to Memphis to begin the year. His production in the minors has been more human than what he showed in camp. His 13.5% walk rate is quite good but he has also been striking out at a 29.4% clip while hitting seven home runs. He has a .232/.344/.420 line and 101 wRC+ on the year, indicating he has been barely above average.
That minor league performance is a close match for his big league track record. He has a solid 8.5% walk rate and 31 home runs in 615 plate appearances but a big 28.8% strikeout rate. That has led to a .212/.286/.433 line and 98 wRC+.
There’s clearly some power but also some swing and miss. Since he’s not a strong defender, he really needs to hit to provide value. The uneven performance has led to Velázquez exhausting his option years. He was passed through waivers last year and had to settle for a minor league deal coming into 2026.
It’s possible Velázquez will be filling a complementary role with the Cards. He hasn’t played center field since 2023. Jordan Walker is having a breakout season in right and isn’t in jeopardy of losing playing time. In left, Bryan Torres just got called up and has a .316/.381/.579 line so far. But Velázquez is a righty and both Torres and center fielder Victor Scott II are both lefties. Velázquez only has modest splits in his career but could nonetheless help the Cards play some matchups.
It’s also worth considering the designated hitter spot, as Velázquez is in there tonight against left-hander Shota Imanaga. The Cards have been giving a decent amount of DH time to catcher Iván Herrera, which is why they have been running a three-catcher system. Alongside Herrera, they have also had Pozo and Pedro Pagés on the roster. It’s unclear what their plan is with swapping in Crooks for Pozo today. Pozo has a dismal .242/.242/.273 line on the year but has only received 33 plate appearances in over two months on the roster.
Crooks is one of the club’s best prospects and has a huge .262/.412/.567 line in Triple-A this year but has presumably been held down because there hasn’t been a lot of big league playing time for him. Herrera has a .264/.390/.423 line and is going to be the lineup most days, either behind the plate or at designated hitter. Perhaps the recall of Crooks signals reduced playing time for Pagés, who is hitting just .219/.262/.360 on the year.
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Guardians Select Stuart Fairchild
The Guardians have selected the contract of outfielder Stuart Fairchild from Triple-A Columbus. He takes the active roster spot of fellow outfielder Steven Kwan, who has been placed on the bereavement/family medical emergency list. To open a 40-man spot, infielder Gabriel Arias has been transferred to the 60-day injured list. Tim Stebbins of MLB.com was among those to relay the moves.
Fairchild has experience in parts of five MLB seasons and has three-plus years of major league service. He’s a glove-first outfielder with a lifetime .223/.305/.384 batting line in 277 big league games (670 plate appearances). The 30-year-old right-handed hitter hasn’t done much of anything against righties in his career (.203/.269/.366), but he carries a .246/.343/.404 line against lefties, which is a bit better than league-average production (106 wRC+).
Cleveland signed Fairchild to a minor league deal over the winter. He started the season in Columbus and has hit quite well there, batting .289/.417/.479 with five homers, eight doubles, a pair of triples, nine steals (in 11 attempts), a 14.8% walk rate and an 18.2% strikeout rate in 176 turns at the plate. That stout production isn’t necessarily a portent for a major league breakout, however. It falls right in line with Fairchild’s career .281/.384/.500 batting line in 706 Triple-A plate appearances.
Fairchild is a plus runner capable of playing all three outfield spots at an average or better clip. Statcast credited him with 86th-percentile sprint speed last year, and he carries strong career marks in Defensive Runs Saved (10) and Outs Above Average (9) in just under 1500 innings of big league outfield work. Fairchild is out of minor league options and thus might wind up being designated for assignment once Kwan returns.
More to come.
Pirates Designate Justin Lawrence For Assignment
The Pirates announced that right-hander Justin Lawrence has been designated for assignment. That opens active and 40-man roster space for righty Jared Jones. It was reported yesterday that Jones would be activated from the 60-day injured list to start tonight’s game.
Lawrence, 31, is having a poor season. He has thrown 22 innings for the Bucs, allowing 5.32 earned runs per nine. His 23.6% strikeout rate and 43.1% walk rate are decent but his 11.3% walk rate is quite high and he has allowed four home runs.
The Pirates were surely expecting much better. Lawrence had spent 2021 to 2024 with the Rockies, posting a 5.43 ERA. The Bucs claimed him off waivers ahead of the 2025 season, perhaps hoping that getting Lawrence away from Coors Field would help him out. That worked last year, in a sense. Lawrence missed a few months due to elbow inflammation and only made 17 appearances, but the results were great. He had a 0.51 ERA in that time. His 11.6% walk rate was too high but he struck out a third of batters faced and induced grounders on 47.2% of balls in play.
Pittsburgh tendered Lawrence a contract for 2026 and he is making $1.225MM this year but that investment has not worked out so far. Lawrence is out of options and has been bumped into DFA limbo. That can last as long as a week but the waiver process takes 48 hours, so the club could take as long as five days to explore trade interest.
Though Lawrence isn’t having his best season, it’s possible there’s some interest. The salary is barely over this year’s $780K league minimum. His four-seamer and sinker average in the upper-90s. His control has never been good, with a 12.3% walk rate in his career, but he has always induced grounders and has occasionally flashed big strikeout potential as well. This year’s struggles are partially due to a drop in strikeouts but also to a home run spike, leading to an unfortunate 55.6% strand rate. His 3.79 SIERA suggests he could have fared better with a slight change in luck.
If Lawrence were to pass through waivers unclaimed, he would have the right to elect free agency but likely wouldn’t do so. Players with three years of service time have the right to elect free agency but need five years of service to exercise that right while keeping their salary commitments in place. Lawrence is in between those three- and five-year lines and he is still owed about $800K on his contract. Presumably, he wouldn’t want to walk away from that money and would accept an assignment to the minors.
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Reds Place Graham Ashcraft On 60-Day IL With UCL Sprain
The Reds announced that they have selected the contract of right-hander Yunior Marté. To open spots on the active and 40-man rosters, right-hander Graham Ashcraft has been placed directly onto the 60-day injured list with a sprain in his ulnar collateral ligament.
The Ashcraft news is both devastating and surprising. He last appeared for the Reds on Monday and there wasn’t any indication anything was amiss. He recorded two strikeouts and a groundout in a scoreless inning, with his velocity in line with previous outings.
Presumably, some discomfort popped up in between that outing and today and testing found a sprain of Ashcraft’s UCL. The team hasn’t announced any information but the fact that Ashcraft has been placed directly on the 60-day IL suggests they don’t expect him back anytime soon.
Not all UCL sprains lead to surgery. In recent years, guys like Mason Miller and Grant Holmes have suffered UCL sprains and managed to come back without surgery, but even those situations required a few months of recovery. Miller’s diagnosis was in May of 2023 and he was back on the mound in September of that same year. Holmes suffered his sprain in July of last year but was healthy for spring training here in 2026.
Perhaps that means Ashcraft could return later this year in a best-case scenario. But the worst-case scenario is Tommy John surgery, which usually comes with a recovery timeline of 14 months or more. That would wipe out the rest of his season and most of his 2027 campaign as well.
Either way, it’s another blow to the Cincinnati bullpen. The Reds are already without closer Emilio Pagán, who hit the IL earlier this month with a hamstring strain. That only made Ashcraft’s contributions more important. Ashcraft picked up 23 holds for the Reds last year, posting a 3.99 earned run average. His 22.5% strikeout rate and 8.8% walk rate were around average but his 55.9% ground ball rate was quite strong.
Here in 2026, he has added a save and another ten holds. His walk rate has ticked up to 14.7% but his strikeout rate also jumped, getting to 29.4%. His ground ball rate has held fairly steady at 54.1%. The end result is a slightly better ERA of 3.33.
With both Pagán and Ashcraft on the IL, the Reds will have to rely on guys like Tony Santillan, Brock Burke and Pierce Johnson for leverage work. Santillan has a decent track record but is not having a good season, with a 5.57 ERA so far. Burke has a 3.60 ERA but is walking a tightrope, having given free passes to 14.3% of opponents. Johnson’s 3.27 ERA is decent but he’s gotten some help from a .262 batting average on balls in play and 83.3% strand rate.
Marté, 31, returns to the big leagues for the first time in a couple of years. He got some time with the Giants and Phillies from 2022 to 2024, posting a 5.64 ERA over 113 1/3 innings. He spent 2025 in Japan, pitching for the Chunichi Dragons of Nippon Professional Baseball, posting a 1.95 ERA for that club.
He returned to North America this past offseason by signing a minor league deal with the Reds. He has thrown 19 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level this year with a 5.12 ERA. His 50% ground ball rate and 27.4% strikeout rate are good but he has walked 12.6% of batters faced and been vulnerable to the long ball, with an 18.8% home run to fly ball ratio. For now, he’ll add a fresh arm to the bullpen. If the Reds want to make a change in the future, Marté is out of options.
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Orioles To Select Cameron Weston
The Orioles are going to select right-hander Cameron Weston, per Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com. Fellow righty Trey Gibson will be optioned to Triple-A Norfolk as the corresponding active roster move. Baltimore had a couple of 40-man vacancies due to both Albert Suárez and Dietrich Enns being designated for assignment in recent days, so Weston fills one of those vacancies.
Weston, 25, was Baltimore’s eighth-round pick in 2022. Reports on him have generally noted that he doesn’t have overpowering stuff but he does have a deep arsenal than can help him keep hitters off balance. He throws a low-90s sinker along with a slider, cutter, changeup and splitter.
The results were definitely working in the lower levels. From 2022 to 2024, he logged 163 1/3 innings as he climbed from Single-A to Double-A. He posted a 3.09 earned run average with a 28.3% strikeout rate and 7.2% walk rate. Going into 2025, Baseball America ranked him the #13 prospect in the system while FanGraphs had him at #14.
The effectiveness of his diverse arsenal seemed to wane as he reached more polished hitters. He tossed 135 1/3 innings at the Triple-A level last year with a 4.59 ERA, 22% strikeout rate and 11.7% walk rate. This year, he has a 6.26 ERA through 11 appearances with a big 30.8% strikeout rate but a worrisome 14.6% walk rate. BA now lists him 28th in the system while FG recently placed him 42nd.
The Orioles have a rotation consisting of Kyle Bradish, Shane Baz, Chris Bassitt, Brandon Young and Trevor Rogers. Perhaps Weston is coming up to take on the long relief role that Suárez was in previously, as the O’s kick off a four-game series hosting the Blue Jays. Bassitt is taking the ball tonight but is having a rough year, with a 5.51 ERA so far. Rogers takes his 6.96 ERA to the mound on Friday. Young goes on Saturday and has a solid 3.47 ERA on the year but in a small sample of seven starts. In his 19 career starts, he has a 5.17 ERA.
If the O’s get into trouble at any point in the coming days, perhaps Weston could eat some innings for them, sparing the other relievers. Since this is his first call-up, he has a full slate of options and could be easily sent back to Norfolk if the O’s need a fresh arm again in the future.
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Jared Jones To Start For Pirates On Friday
Pirates manager Don Kelly told members of the media, including Jason Mackey of MLB.com, that right-hander Jared Jones will start for the Pirates on Friday. Carmen Mlodzinski will move to the bullpen. Jones is on the 60-day injured list, so the Bucs will have to add him to both the 40-man and active rosters.
Jones will be making his first big league start since the 2024 season. He experienced some elbow discomfort during spring training in 2025. He didn’t initially require surgery but ultimately went under the knife on May 21st, requiring an internal brace procedure. The Bucs announced his return timeline as 10 to 12 months and he will now rejoin the club after an absence just a bit longer than the initial window.
Prior to that injury absence, Jones put together an exciting debut season. Paul Skenes got a lot of the attention in 2024 but Jones was also putting up good numbers as a rookie, just not to the same degree. Jones made 22 starts that year and logged 121 2/3 innings with a 4.14 earned run average, 26.2% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. He has made five rehab starts this year with a 2.89 ERA, 32.9% strikeout rate and 8.2% walk rate.
While Jones has been gone, other young arms have stepped in, with Braxton Ashcraft and Bubba Chandler debuting in 2025. Ashcraft has an excellent 2.73 ERA through his first 138 1/3 innings. Chandler hasn’t been as effective but his 4.54 ERA through 83 1/3 innings is serviceable.
If Jones can pick up where he left off, it’s an exciting rotation core. Skenes and Jones are under club control through 2029. Ashcraft and Chandler are controlled for another two years after that. Mitch Keller is signed through 2028. Prospects like Hunter Barco, Thomas Harrington and Antwone Kelly are lurking in the upper minors. Seth Hernandez, the club’s first-round pick in last year’s draft, isn’t even 20 years old yet but he just got promoted to High-A and could be a fast riser.
The long-term rotation picture seemed to motivate the Pirates to add more offense this winter. They felt good enough about the depth to send out Mike Burrows and Johan Oviedo, bringing back Jhostynxon García, Brandon Lowe, Jake Mangum and a couple of other pitchers. They also signed free agents Ryan O’Hearn and Marcell Ozuna.
So far, the team is hanging in a tough National League playoff race. All five clubs in the Central are above .500, leaving the Bucs technically in last place despite a solid 29-27 record, but they are just one game back of a playoff spot at the moment. Jones will jump into the rotation next to Skenes, Ashcraft, Keller and Chandler, hopefully strengthening the staff for the coming months and into future seasons.
Mlodzinski has been holding down a rotation spot in the meantime. He has made 11 appearances this year, only nine of which were officially starts, but the other two were effectively starts behind an opener. Overall, he has 55 innings on the year with a solid 3.76 ERA. His 19.3% strikeout rate is subpar but his 8.4% walk rate and 43.5% ground ball rate are both a bit better than average.
He also has plenty of relief experience, so he should be able to return to that role fairly easily. Officially, he has a 4.40 ERA as a starter and a 2.63 ERA as a reliever in his career, though that split is thrown off a bit since he has occasionally worked as an opener and as a bulk guy behind an opener.
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Red Sox Place Garrett Whitlock On Injured List
The Red Sox announced that right-hander Garrett Whitlock has been placed on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to May 25th, with left knee inflammation. Left-hander Tyler Samaniego was recalled to take his spot on the roster.
It’s unclear how much time Whitlock will miss but it’s an unfortunate blow to the Sox. Whitlock has been one of their better leverage arms recently. He racked up 24 holds and a save last year. He has already added another nine holds this season. Combining the 2025 and 2026 campaigns, he has thrown 91 2/3 innings with a 2.45 earned run average. His 8% walk rate and 43.4% ground ball rate in that time are pretty close to par while his 31% strikeout rate is well above average.
The injury is also frustrating due to the way it happened. The Sox and Twins were playing through some rain on Sunday and Whitlock slipped on a wet mound, causing some knee soreness. It seems Whitlock and the club spent the past few days monitoring the knee before deciding to put him on the shelf. Since he hasn’t pitched since then, they have backdated the IL placement by the three-day maximum. If Whitlock’s knee feels better quickly, he could be back in less than two weeks.
The Sox have Aroldis Chapman in the closer role but other arms will have to step in to take over Whitlock’s leverage innings while he’s out. Justin Slaten and Greg Weissert could be some of the options there. Weissert has a 3.80 ERA in 21 1/3 innings for the Sox this year. His 22.3% strikeout rate is around par but his 7.4% walk rate and 46.9% ground ball rate are a few ticks better than average. Slaten spent time on the IL and only has 8 2/3 innings pitched on the year with a 4.15 ERA but a huge 32.4% strikeout rate.
Ideally, Whitlock’s absence will be minimal but any setback for the club looms large at the moment. The Sox are out to a rough 23-31 start, putting them only three games up on the last-place Angels in the American League standings. What is working in Boston’s favor is that many other A.L. clubs are also scuffling, so Boston is only three games back of a Wild Card spot.
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Tigers Notes: Skubal, Verlander, Mize, Carpenter, Torres, Báez
Left-hander Tarik Skubal is on the injured list but is in the spotlight regardless. He is working his way back from surgery earlier this month to remove a loose body from his elbow. He has already begun throwing. On Tuesday, he threw 40 pitches over three innings in a sim game. He’ll throw another sim game on Monday, per Chris McCosky of Detroit News.
The Tigers are staying away from specific timelines with Skubal, which is understandable. A surgery for loose bodies in a pitcher’s elbow would normally require an absence of three months or so, if not longer. It’s possible Skubal can return quicker but he’s in uncharted waters. His procedure was performed with a device called a NanoNeedle, which is smaller than a traditional arthroscope. A smaller device means a smaller incision and, hopefully, less swelling, pain and recovery time.
It all sounds nice but Skubal is the first MLB player to have surgery with the device, so there’s no track record here. But with Skubal already throwing a few innings, perhaps it’s possible he’s back on a big league mound sooner than would normally be expected. Even returning in July would be quicker than most other surgeries for loose bodies but June doesn’t feel totally out of the question at this point, though it’s worth reiterating that no one really knows for sure how this will play out.
As he goes through the next stages of his recovery, he will be closely watched since the ramifications of his status are huge. It’s well known that Skubal is one of the best pitchers alive. He won the American League Cy Young in each of the past two seasons, with an ERA barely over 2.00 in each of those campaigns.
He is also an impending free agent and the Tigers are floundering without him. When the news of his surgery dropped on May 4th, the Tigers were 18-17 and tied with the Guardians for the lead in the American League Central. They have since gone into freefall and have a record of 22-34, just one game ahead of the basement-dwelling Angels in the A.L. standings. Despite that poor record, the Tigers are only five games out of a playoff spot, due to the general weakness of the A.L. playoff field.
Trade speculation has been swirling around Skubal for a while. A deal in the offseason never seemed especially likely with the Tigers in win-now mode. If they stay down in the standings, then the possibility will increase. The Detroit front office may be left with some difficult decisions in the coming months, depending how the team plays, how other A.L. clubs play and how Skubal’s health proceeds.
For now, they will be focused on getting him back on the mound. And it’s not just Skubal whose health is in focus, as there are a large number of injuries impacting the club. Their rotation is also without Justin Verlander, Jackson Jobe, Reese Olson and Ty Madden.
Like Skubal, Verlander is on the comeback trail. Verlander made just one start this year before left hip inflammation sent him to the IL. Yesterday, he threw 66 pitches over parts of four innings in a sim game, per Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press. His next step will be a rehab assignment as long as he doesn’t experience any kind of setback in the coming days.
Though it’s encouraging that Skubal and Verlander are making progress, the rotation might take a step back before either of those two can return. Casey Mize only lasted four innings yesterday, departing due to right groin tightness. That’s the same area that sent him to the IL earlier this year, as he spent about three weeks on the shelf from late April until the middle of May. It’s not yet clear if he’ll need to return to the IL this time around.
If the Tigers need to reach further into their depth, they have Sawyer Gipson-Long and Jake Miller on optional assignment. Drew Anderson has been pitching multiple innings out of the bullpen and could perhaps step into the rotation.
On the position player side, there are some guys making good progress. Outfielder Kerry Carpenter and second baseman Gleyber Torres are both going to start rehab assignments in the coming days, per Evan Woodbery of MLive Media Group.
Torres has been out for about three weeks due to an oblique strain. Since then, Detroit has mostly been deploying a platoon of Hao-Yu Lee and Zach McKinstry at the keystone, but Lee is hitting .194/.237/.306 and McKinstry .168/.232/.228. Torres had an odd .259/.389/.328 line before hitting the IL, with his walks way up but his power down, but that would be a clear upgrade over what the Tigers are getting from the position now.
Carpenter was striking out a lot but still hitting fairly well before a left AC joint sprain put him on the shelf earlier this month. Getting him back into the designated hitter/corner outfield mix should allow the Tigers to take at-bats away from Wenceel Pérez, who has a .163/.226/.260 line on the year, or Gage Workman and his .167/.167/.417 line.
One guy who apparently won’t be back in the mix soon is Javier Báez, who has already missed a month due to a sprained right ankle. Per Christian Romo of the Detroit Free Press, manager A.J. Hinch said this week that Báez’s ankle hasn’t been healing as hoped and he is headed out to see a specialist to try to find more answers.
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Tigers Place Kenley Jansen On IL
The Tigers announced that right-hander Kenley Jansen has been placed on the 15-day injured list with pelvic inflammation. Left-hander Drew Sommers has been recalled to take his place on the roster.
Jansen has been dealing with a groin/abdomen issue for a few weeks. The Tigers announced on May 2nd that he had been day to day due to that ailment, per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic. From April 30th to May 9th, he only made one appearance, giving him a semi-rest period without a trip to the IL.
He was able to pitch for the past few weeks but the issue flared up again last night. He entered the game in the ninth with Detroit up 4-0. He faced three batters and recorded two outs but was laboring and eventually exited after a visit from the trainer. Brenan Hanifee came in to get the final out.
Perhaps due to the injury, Jansen hasn’t been having his best season. Signed to an $11MM deal in the offseason, Jansen has a 4.80 earned run average through 15 innings. His 30.6% strikeout rate is quite good and a big jump from last year’s 24.4% pace but he is also walking 14.5% of batters faced. That’s well above his 7.8% career rate and last year’s 8.1% clip.
Ideally, taking the time to heal up will get him back on track. Though he’s now 38 years old, Jansen has continued to be an effective reliever. He racked up 29 saves for the Angels last year, posting a 2.59 ERA in the process.
Despite his subpar numbers, it’s a blow for the Tigers. They have already been severely set back by injuries, a big reason why they have fallen to 22-34 on the year. Jansen is now the 15th Tiger on the IL. That list includes five relievers, with Beau Brieske, Bailey Horn, Brant Hurter and Burch Smith being the other four.
While Jansen is out, the Tigers will probably look to guys like Kyle Finnegan, Will Vest and Tyler Holton to step up for leverage work. Finnegan has a 1.75 ERA on the year but he’s very fortunate to have that number. His 13.9% strikeout rate is barely half of league average and he has been walking 17.6% of batters faced. The main reason for that ERA is a 94.1% strand rate he won’t be able to sustain. His 5.13 FIP and 5.99 SIERA aren’t optimistic about him keeping his ERA so low.
Vest is in the opposite position, as he has a high 7.88 ERA he doesn’t deserve. His 23.6% strikeout rate and 9.7% walk rates are both around average, while his 55.3% ground ball rate is quite strong. A tiny 37.7% strand rate has pushed a bunch of runs across the plate. His 3.88 FIP and 3.38 SIERA suggest he has deserved far better.
Holton’s 4.56 ERA is almost a run higher than last year’s 3.66, which seems to be mostly poor luck. His strikeout, walk and ground ball rates are all pretty similar to last year. The major change is that his batting average on balls in play has jumped to .333 after being at .231 last year.
Turning back to Jansen, his $11MM deal came in the form of a $9MM salary and $2MM buyout on a $12MM club option for 2027, making that a net $10MM decision. That’s roughly around what he got paid this winter, so it would be close to fair value if he were pitching to his usual standards. How he looks when he returns from his injury will impact that decision.
It’s also possible that a team other than the Tigers is making that call. Given the club’s record and position in the standings, it’s possible they go into this summer’s deadline as sellers. Since Jansen isn’t guaranteed anything beyond that buyout, he would be a natural trade candidate, especially since almost all contenders look for bullpen upgrades ahead of the deadline.
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Latest On Justin Steele
The Cubs provided an update on left-hander Justin Steele this week, as relayed by Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic. The southpaw has been cleared to progress to strengthening and then plyo balls but is still multiple weeks away from throwing a baseball.
Steele underwent surgery to address the ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow in April of last year. He was throwing off a mound by January of 2026 and there was some optimism about a fairly early return this season. That didn’t come to pass. He hit a setback in late April when he suffered a flexor strain, with manager Craig Counsell saying at that time that they no longer expected Steele back before the All-Star break.
Counsell tried to frame this week’s update as positive, in the sense that Steele is now going to start progressing through some standard recovery steps. However, it does feel as though his timeline has been pushed again. As laid out by Sharma, even in a best-case scenario, Steele will start throwing again in the middle of June. After ramping up for a bit, he could go out on a rehab assignment in July and perhaps return in August. Any further setbacks would start to put his season in jeopardy.
“We’re just hopeful to get him back,” president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said this week. “Obviously, there comes a point where you run out of days, but I don’t think we’re there yet. I know Justin wants to come back more than anything.”
It’s a frustrating situation for Steele and the team. The lefty was a solid member of the rotation from 2022 to 2024, posting a 3.10 earned run average in 78 starts. He was only able to make four starts in 2025 before getting injured. Whether he can top four starts this year is up in the air. Even if he does beat that figure, it won’t be by much.
As of a few months ago, the Cubs were dreaming of a scenario where their rotation core consisted of Steele, Cade Horton, Edward Cabrera and Matthew Boyd this summer. Instead, all four are on the IL. Horton required Tommy John surgery in April and is done for the year. Boyd had meniscus surgery in May and is still on the mend. Cabrera landed on the shelf last week due to a blister.
That has left the Cubs with a starting group consisting of Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Colin Rea, Ben Brown and Jordan Wicks. Brown is running with the opportunity, with a 2.01 ERA on the year. Imanaga and Rea are posting passable numbers. Taillon has a 5.37 ERA thanks to a spike in home runs. Wicks just got called up from the minors and his first start of the year didn’t go well, as he allowed eight earned runs in 4 1/3 innings.
There’s obviously a big gap between the way the Cubs drew it up and the way it’s playing out. There is some good news in the short term. Sharma relays that Cabrera is expected to return after a minimal stint, so he could be back in about a week. The plan for Boyd is for him to make two rehab starts, the first of which is scheduled for Sunday, so he could be back in a couple of weeks. If everyone else stays healthy, the returns of Cabrera and Boyd could push Wicks back to the minors and someone else to the bullpen.
Those tidbits are somewhat encouraging but also come with asterisks. Cabrera has dealt with blisters throughout his career, with IL stints for them in 2021 and 2025. He’s also been fairly prone to injuries more broadly, having hit 100 innings in a season just once in his career. Boyd also has a spotty health track record, with just one season over 80 innings in this decade.
Even if that group stays somewhat stable for the next few months, it seems fair to expect the Cubs to be looking for more starting pitching this summer. Steele’s status might be more clear as the August 3rd deadline approaches but it will probably be hard to rely on him galloping in to save the day, based on how things have played out this year.
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