LOS ANGELES — The worst-case scenario has come to fruition for Chicago Cubs left-hander Justin Steele.
Steele will undergo season-ending surgery Friday to repair the flexor tendon and address the ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), manager Craig Counsell announced Sunday. The extent of the damage to Steele’s UCL won’t be known until the doctor gets eyes on it during the procedure. The Cubs will have a better timetable for Steele’s recovery after the surgery.
“You don’t replace people like Justin Steele,” Counsell said Sunday. “It’s kind of the next guy has to step up, but it’s very difficult to replace that level of play. So, you hope you have some options to do so and we think we do, and those guys are going to get the next shot.”
Steele, who turns 30 in July, had Tommy John surgery in 2017. He initially experienced left elbow tendinitis in July 2024 and again in September, which landed him on the injured list, but he was able to return to make two starts before the end of last season. Steele also missed about 2 1/2 weeks in June 2023 with a forearm strain. Those ailments could be connected to this diagnosis.
Counsell described the injury as a deteriorating situation, rather than something happening on a singular pitch, to the point where it was going to keep happening. Counsell spoke to Steele again Sunday morning, commending his great attitude with the tough situation.
“He has an injured elbow, and he has to fix it, as simple as that,” Counsell said. “On a day like this, you feel for Justin, and the life of a major-league pitcher with these injuries that make you miss most of seasons.”
Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy couldn’t hold back tears as he discussed an emotional conversation he had with Steele on Saturday when the pitcher called to inform him of the decision to have surgery and talk through the situation. Hottovy has known Steele since 2015 when he first joined the organization one year after the Cubs selected the lefty in the fifth round of the draft, a relationship that has continued to grow as they have worked together the last five years in the majors.
Hottovy felt optimistic that Steele had avoided this outcome when he started to feel better two days after his Monday start. However, when the MRI revealed changes in his arm compared to the imaging from September, a different reality started to emerge.
“You kind of start putting the pieces together in your head, OK, like, if this is going to keep happening, if it’s going to get a little bit worse every single time, what does that mean?” Hottovy said. “Not just for Justin but any pitcher when you know there’s something going on and the uncertainty of when that’s going to happen, I think some guys like the ability to have some control of whatever that timeline was.”
The wear and tear that is inherently part of pitching and where the brunt of that force manifests within their throwing motion is different for every pitcher. For some, it’s in the shoulder. For others, like Steele, it’s in the elbow, Hottovy noted.
“Obviously, you feel for Justin, just the competitor he is, he wants to be out there and doesn’t have the opportunity to do that, you feel for him,” Hottovy said. “Over the years, you form these amazing relationships with guys, and so you get to know them really well and you feel like you live and die with everything that goes on with those guys.
“So, for me, it’s just so important for Justin to get answers more so than anything to what’s been going on and it’s just a bump in the road, but where he is in his career, what he’s been able to prove, excited and confident that when he does get through this and comes back that he can be his dominant self.”
Hottovy doesn’t believe there is any connection between Steele’s injury and the earlier start to the season with the Tokyo Series in mid-March. Steele adjusted his offseason program and wanted to avoid fully shutting down, instead keeping his arm moving through playing light catch before going through his traditional build-up process. The vision, regardless of the Japan trip, was to avoid fully shutting back down after pitching 6 2/3 innings in those final two 2024 starts and then ramping up weeks into the offseason and having the tendinitis flare up again.
“We didn’t ask him to do anything more going to Japan in terms of pitch-count wise than we would if it were his fourth, fifth start in spring training,” Hottovy said. “Obviously, intensity is different, but he wasn’t feeling anything at that time, he wasn’t complaining of any issues. I think having some injuries he’s had in the past, we’re behind the eight ball a little bit of what the elbow is going to look like.”
Right-hander Colin Rea will start in Steele’s spot for Sunday’s series final at Dodger Stadium, and Counsell expects him to stay in that spot for now. Right-hander Javier Assad is nearing a return, too, with rehab starts at Triple-A Iowa on Tuesday and Sunday. And with four off days in the next two weeks, there’s flexibility in how the Cubs can use their starters.
But no matter how the Cubs frame the situation, losing Steele is a huge blow to their efforts to win the division and return to the postseason. It puts a damper on an otherwise great start for the Cubs amid a challenging April schedule.
Pitchers always hear every spring about the value of depth, that injuries happen and ultimately are unavoidable over the course of the season.
“I always roll my eyes (at that) because I’m like, ‘Eff that, none of us are going down,’ and here we are,” starter Jameson Taillon told the Tribune on Saturday. “So I’m glad the front office probably doesn’t have the emotional, like, they know they have to have a certain amount of depth, and we have it.”
Although the Cubs have potential upside starter options in top pitching prospect Cade Horton and left-hander Jordan Wicks, both at Triple A, they don’t have one pitcher who will be able to immediately plug in and deliver the quality innings Steele has provided. Few starters have been as consistent as Steele since starting full-time, dating to the beginning of the 2022 season. In those three-plus seasons, Steele’s 3.18 ERA is tied for 11th best among major-league starters, and he is tied for 17th in fWAR.
As someone who has dealt with injuries, Taillon understands how Steele is feeling and the impact of his absence in the rotation.
“You don’t just replace Justin Steele,” Taillon said. “You do your best to limit the damage and hopefully keep our team in games. But, yeah, you don’t just go and replace a guy like that. He means a lot to us. … We’ve got just plenty of arms to hopefully keep our team in games. But obviously, it hurts.
“I watched him show up in Arizona all spring and put the work in, and sometimes that’s just how it goes. It’s a cruel world, and the game doesn’t know whether you’re putting in the work or not.”
