Well, there you go, it’s the worst possible case scenario. Cade Horton, the Cubs ace and best young pitcher in years, will miss the entire 2026 season.
Craig Counsell announced as much to the media before tonight’s Game 2 matchup against the Tampa Bay Rays.
© Ken Blaze-Imagn ImagesCade Horton Out for the Year
More specifically, Cade Horton will miss the year because of surgery on his UCL. It’s not immediately clear if that surgery is – precisely – Tommy John surgery. For example, Justin Steele had surgery on his UCL last year that was not technically Tommy John. But it doesn’t really matter, because the effect is pretty similar – at least, in terms of this season.
There is a small chance that, if it’s not Tommy John, that he’ll have a slightly easier path to his return in 2027. But that won’t come this year. And, like we’ve seen with Justin Steele, it’s not even necessarily a “12-month” thing, which puts Opening Day 2027 into question, to say nothing of what he’ll look like the rest of his career. Remember, he already had Tommy John surgery once before.
And what can I say? This is brutal, heartbreaking, and potentially season-defining for the Chicago Cubs. And it’s basically the same thing that happened to them last year with Justin Steele (that is to say, losing their most important starter for the season in April).
The Cubs still have a good volume of starting pitchers available internally (Edward Cabrera, Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Justin Steele, Javier Assad, Colin Rea … and in the extreme, Ben Brown, Jordan Wicks, and Jaxon Wiggins). But they really have only one guy, Cabrera, with the upside of Cade Horton.
Plus, you know, Steele is still on the IL, as is Boyd, and Wicks. And Wiggins is a prospect, whom we cannot count on by any stretch of the imagination.
So, yeah, again, I repeat: This is about as bad as it gets for this Cubs team right now. Horton was meant to be the glue of the rotation, and just like that, he’s gone.
What the Cubs do next isn’t clear, but now that we know it’s going to be a season-long absence, there are some different paths available to them (maybe they go out and sign Lucas Giolito … that might be the way to go). For the immediate future, you can expect Assad to stick in the rotation and probably Colin Rea to step in, as well, until Boyd is back. After that, if everyone stays healthy, maybe they’ll survive until Justin Steele returns. But we don’t know when that will be, how good he’ll look, or what sort of innings restriction he’ll have when he does return.
Worse, the Cubs two highest upside remaining starters, Boyd and Cabrera, are both high-risk injury guys, themselves. Oh, and Taillon was dealing with some depressed velocity, too.
Someone’s going to need to step up, though. Multiple someones, really. But even if they do, I don’t think there’s anyway around the following: The Cubs chances to go all the way this season just took the most drammatic possible hit they could. And it’s only April 7.
We’ll have many more discussions on the fallout from Cade Horton’s surgery diagnosis and the subsequent plans when we know more. But for now, feel free to panic. This stinks.
UPDATE: According to Bruce Levine, the injury Cade Horton suffered is similar to Justin Steele’s last season. Which is to say we won’t know exactly which procedure he needs to undergo until the surgeon gets in there and starts poking around.
Again, I am just so fully dissapointed. Cade Horton was prime for a breakout and looked truly excellent this spring and early season. This absolutely blows.
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