Chicago Cubs president discusses Plan B options for beleaguered pitching staff

The Chicago Cubs have been suffering through gut punch after gut punch when it comes to their pitching. Running down the list of misfortune almost sounds too comically unlucky to be real.

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Emerging ace Cade Horton went down with an elbow injury that required season-ending surgery. Matthew Boyd has been laid up with a left biceps strain. Reliever Phil Maton went on the shelf with right knee tendinitis. Hunter Harvey is on the IL with right triceps inflammation. The recently called-up Ethan Roberts is out with a freak finger laceration. Top pitching prospect Jaxon Wiggins was placed on the IL in Iowa suffering from right elbow inflammation. Most recently, it was announced that reliever Porter Hodge would be undergoing season-ending elbow surgery.

All of this, less than three full weeks into the 2026 season.

Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer did a good job this offseason of adding a virtual legion of insurance arms via minor league deals to a pitching staff considered deep with options. But that depth is already being tested and is close to the point of breaking after so many early losses. Two key bullpen pieces—swingmen Colin Rea and Javier Assad—are already plugging holes in the starting rotation.

There’s also the reality facing the team that nobody is quite sure how good former ace Justin Steele will be once he comes back from his own elbow surgery before mid-season.

Pitching insecurity demands attention

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Hoyer and the Cubs, however, are not done adding arms. On Wednesday they signed former major leaguers Ty Blach and Paul Campbell to minor league deals. Chicago, however, is possibly one more big injury away from full-on collapse and minor league pickups won’t suffice if the goal is a deep postseason run.

Hoyer recently talked about the scramble for some Plan Bs in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.

“You just immediately feel sorry for the player, but then you just process like, ‘Who’s up next?’” Hoyer said before Wednesday’s against the Phillies. “You have to move on quick mentally. It sounds cold-hearted, but that’s the nature of the job. The games go on, you have to find replacements.”

Hoyer pondering Plan B options for the pitching staff

“There’s opportunities being created for guys,” Counsell added. “Through this process, we’re going to find some guys that are going to help us this year, and so that’s how you’ve got to look at it. That’s a great thing. That’s a positive out of all this.

“The schedule’s not gonna stop. We gotta find ways to come up with new guys and come up with real options. Hopefully, some of those guys can step up.”

One of those “new guys” could be the still-available free agent Lucas Giolito, who is reportedly drawing attention from a few teams, notably the Cubs and San Diego Padres. But the veteran right-hander would need at least a month to be competition ready and, even then, many are not sold on his full-season viability as a rotation piece.

Whatever Hoyer and the Cubs decide, they probably will have to decide it now rather than cross their fingers for a fortunate injury-free rest of the way to the trade deadline.

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Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-president-jed-hoyer-pitching-options-signings-lucas-giolito/