During yesterday’s Cactus League game against the Rangers, Cubs’ starter Justin Steele hopped into the Marquee Broadcast Booth to discuss his recovery from season-ending elbow surgery last April.
And like pretty much every Steele update we’ve gotten from or about him lately, this report seems to be pretty optimistic.
Justin Steele Speaks
“I’m feeling really good. Bullpens have been progressing really well lately.”Justin Steele provides an update on his return ? pic.twitter.com/m6P3eGYRbv
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) February 21, 2026Here’s what he had to say:
“I’m feeling very good. Bullpens have been progressing well lately. I’m throwing two a week, Tuesdays (plus) Fridays and/or Saturdays. I had one yesterday (Friday), recovering well from that. The next one will be 35 pitches. Throwing four-seam, sinkers, and sliders right now. I’m gonna be introducing changeups into the bullpens next week, I believe. At that point, I’ll be at curveballs to catch play. That’s kind of the progression were going with as far as getting pitches back into the game mound.”
So the approach here seems to be introducing pitches in reverse-order of stress on the elbow, first by playing catch with the pitch, then in actual bullpen sessions. Steele says he’s already got his four-seamer, sinker, and slider, with changeups coming this week. Maybe that means by this time next week, after a couple of successful bullpens with his changeup, he’ll be talking about introducing curveballs, which would give him all of his pitches back in that setting.
What do I think this means in terms of his eventual return? I don’t think anybody knows, including the Cubs. And until he is actually throwing curveballs without any issue, I don’t think there’s really any point in starting to map out his return.
Obviously, we all want to hope the Ben Cowles DFA means the Cubs don’t think they’ll have to put Steele on the 60-Day IL (implying an even swifter return than the initially optimistic timelines would suggest), but I just don’t think we’re there yet.
In the meantime, the Cubs have five nominal starters *currently* healthy and ready for the rotation on Opening Day: Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd, Jameson Taillon, Shota Imanaga, and Edward Cabrera. After those five, they have two other starters with recent big league success standing by in Colin Rea (who’s starting this afternoon against the Giants) and Javier Assad. And after them, the Cubs have less certain, but theoretically capable starters available in Ben Brown and Jordan Wicks.
Point there being, there’s really no reason to rush Justin Steele back. In fact, as we’ve discussed often on the BN Cubs Podcast, there’s an argument to be made that given Steele’s likely inning limit in 2026 (either prescribed or just literally physically-restricted), pushing back his arrival might serve the Cubs best this year. You want this guy to be humming from August through October more than you want it from May through July.
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