11:05am: Steele tells ESPN’s Jesse Rogers that he first felt discomfort during his most recent start against the Rangers. He gutted through another couple innings, but the discomfort lingered in the days following that appearance. He believes it’ll be a minimum IL stint.
10:22am: The Cubs placed lefty Justin Steele on the 15-day injured list due to tendinitis in his left elbow, per a team announcement. Righty Ethan Roberts has been recalled from Triple-A Iowa to take his spot on the roster.
It’s something of a surprise IL placement for the excellent 29-year-old southpaw. The Cubs hadn’t previously acknowledged any elbow troubles for Steele — at least not publicly — and he’s coming off the best results of his season to date. He fired seven shutout innings with three hits, two walks and eight punchouts against the Rangers just two days ago.
Steele’s fastball averaged just 90.2 mph during that outing, however, tying him for the lowest mark of his career. At first glance, that could’ve been chalked up to frigid low-30s temperatures at Wrigley Field, but it seems there’s at least some degree of elbow trouble at play. On the whole, Statcast has measured Steele’s average heater at 90.8 mph this season — a career-low mark that’s down even relative to his early work in prior seasons.
The Cubs haven’t given any sort of timetable for Steele’s absence. He’ll be sidelined into late April at the very least, joining fellow starter Javier Assad on the injured list. The Cubs still have Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Matthew Boyd and Ben Brown locked into rotation spots. Veteran swingman Colin Rea seems likely to step into the starting five in place of Steele, though lefty Jordan Wicks gives Chicago a healthy option who’s on the 40-man roster down in Triple-A. Fellow Triple-A starter Caleb Kilian, also on the 40-man roster, was placed on the minor league IL over the weekend after giving up six runs in 2 1/3 innings during his 2025 debut.
The Cubs have an off-day tomorrow — one of five remaining off-days on their schedule in the month of April. They still have six consecutive days with a game from April 11-16, so they’ll need a fifth starter during that stretch, but they can plug Rea or Wicks in as the starter in a de facto bullpen game and navigate the rest of the month with only four starters, pending the rest of the group’s health.
Roberts, 27, has pitched in a pair of big league seasons with the Cubs but has yet to cement himself as a regular in the bullpen. He’ll give manager Craig Counsell a fresh arm for now, and his early work in Iowa is certainly eye-catching; he’s appeared in three games, tallied 4 1/3 innings and held opponents scoreless on four hits and no walks with eight strikeouts.
Yeah, Savant shows that a lot of his great metrics from last year are completely down.
He’s done. What a tragic end to what looked like a great career.
@BadMojo
I’m going to cry… Best pitcher in the history of all of baseball is done.
Yes it’s a sad day for sure. I wouldn’t cry over it though. Maybe start watching the White Sox to take your mind off of the Cubs? That’s what I am doing.
Wow. Seems a bit drastic of a response doesn’t it? Does someone need to talk you off the ledge?
To each his own….
Just waiting for the Cub statement of “it’s been bothering him for about two weeks” statement but “we thought he could pitch through it.”
Dansby Swanson’s knee bothered him for “about two weeks” last year, then he went on the DL.
Ben Brown’s neck bothered him for “about two weeks” last year, then he was lost for the season.
Keegan Thompson, Yency Almonte, Julian Merryweather, Nico Hoerner……
Too many of those stories last season.
OK–I will take them at their word and gladly accept the updated report of “most recent start.”
Not sure I will buy the minimal stint notion, but glad to see that it felt that way in Japan.
F
Elbow tendinitis, great…
Can someone explain to me in a serious way, what’s up with all these arm injuries in this era of precision training, limiting innings, etc. Back in the day, we had overweight, out of shape guys throwing 20+ Complete games a year and hardly ever did they get injured.
It’s cheaper to call a kid up and blow out their arm before they hit free agency, then try to keep them healthy and potentially have to pay them more money. In the process, you get a guy’s best stuff which means less runs and more wins
Without looking too much into it I’ll guess most of these short IL placements are injuries/discomforts players used to play through which probably hurt them months/years down the road. Today teams and players would rather play 75% of the season at 100% than 100% of the season at 75%.
I would say 100% effort with the kind of spin rates used by today’s pitch types. Do pitchers who throw mostly fastballs and changeups have the same injury rates? I believe pitchers like Walter Johnson, Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan threw max effort but didn’t have TJ surgery, right? It could be arm angle, spin rate, age, effort, genetics or just coincidence for all I know.
Pitchers should be throwing every single day and not taking days off. However, teams are paying them too much money so they give them days off from throwing.
I’m sure it’s a combination of things. To name a few:
1. Kids are starting earlier, throwing more, throwing harder, and throwing more breaking pitches at earlier ages. As they develop into high school or in camps and clubs (including internationally), competition for draft status and college recruiting is more and more competitive, By the time they’re in the Majors (those who stick to it and make it that far), those are the ones who’ve been throwing since their ages were single digits. Too many amateur coaches (e.g. “dads”) managing the arm health of youth baseball pitchers.
2. Intensity training is pushing velocity through the ceiling. The efforts to build up arm strength are questionable at best, and certainly short-sighted (e.g. using weighted balls, etc.)
3. The value of MLB contracts and even draft signing bonuses on these premium arms is getting out of control. As soon as a small issue arises, they’re shelved in order to preserve the equity earned for owners out of their “investments”
There’s a couple reasons that immediately come to my mind. By no means is this exhaustive or a true representation of causality, but this is what I’ve seen in my time in the game.
Don’t know how much of Colin Rea I can take. Hopefully Assad is working his way back sooner rather than later. Wicks would be the obvious choice but his first 2 starts in Iowa haven’t been stellar. Oh well they have an extra reliever for 3 days before they have to decide.
I’m not as big an Assad fan as you are, but I tend to agree he is probably better than Rea.
Uncle—let him have a bad outing or two before you roast the guy. You’ve already gotten two great starts from your other punching bag—Mathew Boyd. Put those in your pocket as points ahead.
Good thing—-lots of off days sprinkled in.
Bad thing—rough schedule continues for three weeks no matter who is pitching.
When this all started I was thinking 15-16 would be a great position going into May 1st. Then put together about a 17-9 May and take it from there. Now, have hopes of being over .500 at the end of the month.
Happy April 9th to us!
Rea seems to have figured some things out. It seemed a ridiculous contract at the beginning, but the more we turned down high end contracts this past offseason, the more I’m holding out hope that our stingy owner might actually go after Tucker. One can dream….
My favorite ” Punching bag”? All I’ve said about him is overpaid and always hurt. Woo Hoo he’s made 2 starts. When he pitches he’s not bad. he’s just never done enough of it to warrant the contract. If he makes 30 starts I’ll be amazed. And if Steele is really only gone 15 days I can ” Live” with Rea. But I don’t want to see a steady diet of him. They have better options or should have anyway. Wicks should straighten out eventually, Noland is off to a decent start, Horton, Birdsell maybe. Not really sure what his deal is. Assad needs to start some games on an injury rehab assignment. All better options if healthy.
I wish I could share your optimism re/Wicks, who seems to be just a little shy of the ability needed to be a successful starter in the majors. You write, “they have better options or should have anyway.” I fear the last part of that sentence is the sad truth. They should have, but may not.
I only say ” Should have” Because you never know about Hoyer. He’ll never give a guy a chance in his own system because he loves making deals he shouldn’t make to justify his own existence. Sometimes you need to trust in the system and he never will. Sometimes guys just need a chance. sometimes you need to learn on the job ala PCA. Sometimes it takes a bit of time and faith.
Too bad. Steele was leafing MLB in Fielding-independent FLH by a wide margin already, but that will suffer because of this.
Don’t care what anyone else says the spin rate that is preached these days is 99 percent behind the large majority of these pitcher injuries
I’m happy with that update, if Steele says he wasn’t feeling anything until his last start I’m willing to go with that belief. While his ratings have been down to start this year, hopefully the rest will get him fully ready to dominate.
Great news. Now Tom and Jed don’t need to offer him an extension! Think about the money saved
Terrible that it’s that way, right? For Cubs fans to be the last to defend their ownership is par for the course at this point, but definitely frustrating.
I wish Hoyer would be aggressive and trade for a starting pitcher right now, to increase his options. Like the Brewers did the other day. Yes, he ain’t going to get a star, and yes, it will cost a prospect or two–but hoping-for-the-best is not a strategy.
No team at this early in the season is going to give up a good or decent starter.
Especially for a guy like Quinn Priester—the Brewer he referenced. And believe me, I’m all for Quinn Priester—he’s from Cary Grove High School—right around the corner from me……from Cary, IL—as suburb of Chicago.
Right, but maybe some team could be wrong about a pitcher who turns out to be a diamond in the rough.
of course as soon as he has a good game he gets injured
Steele missed a couple weeks last year with elbow tendonitis. So we’ll see.
What an opportunity to bring up their no 1 pitching prospect Cade Horton and see what he can do even if maybe a short term basis. Instead they continue to bring up the back and forth guys like Ethan Horton. Somewhat surprised it wasn’t Alecia.
I’d like that. Though, as the article suggests, they’ll likely mix and match the 5th starter spot while Assad and Steele are on the shelf. Give them 15 days and then we’ll see how long this’ll actually last. If we don’t get one or two of them back this month, I’d like to see Horton get his call up.
U
Correction- palencia
I took Alecia for an embarrassing medical issue, but am better now…
Ouch. Going to be dumpster diving hoyer soon
Problem with philosophy of not bringing up Horton right now is that cubs have history of going along too slowly until the prospect goes stale.
And other teams look at player what’s wrong with him
It’s April and the pitching just got worse. Let’s find out if the farm system is as advertised, because CF and 3rd base are over matched.
Cubs on two team trip out west with 6 quality pitchers facing them so they’d better be equipped to play small ball and not swing for fences. If any indication yesterdays game with Texas, runs and hits tough to come by.