Editor’s note: The Cubs enter the winter hoping to build a team that can make the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since doing so four years in a row from 2015 to 2018. We look at each position on the Cubs’ roster as they aim to get back to October baseball in 2026.
Next up: Starting rotation.
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Cade Horton
Jameson Taillon
Matthew Boyd
Shota Imanaga
Colin Rea
Javier Assad
Ben Brown
Jordan Wicks
Justin Steele
Jaxon Wiggins
Analysis
On the surface, this staff looks strong.
None of the projected top five players on the depth chart had over a 3.95 ERA, Cubs starters had the eighth-best ERA in baseball and the staff is spearheaded by a right-hander coming off a campaign where he posted a 2.67 ERA and finished second in NL Rookie of the Year voting.
But dig even just a touch and the questions arise.
Only one starter (Boyd) made every turn in the rotation. Horton was injured in his final start of 2025 and didn’t make a playoff roster because of it. And their highest-paid arm by annual average value (AAV), Imanaga, struggled mightily down the stretch.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe left-hander is back after accepting the one-year, $22.025 million qualifying offer from the Cubs. He struggled with limiting the home run ball and made just one start in October, which included warming up twice in the decisive Game 5 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Division Series and never entering. How he bounces back from a brutal finish to 2025 will be a key storyline.
Horton’s potential is tantalizing, but there will be questions about health – 2025 was the first time as a professional or in his collegiate career that he threw over 100 innings. Rea had maybe the best year of his career at age 34 and asking him to replicate that might be a tall task.
That’s not to say it’s all doom and gloom from the starting group.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe crux of a rotation that can get through a 162-game marathon is there. Taillon has posted a sub 4.00-ERA in each of the last two seasons. Boyd was the Game 1 starter for the Cubs in his All-Star campaign and, now nearly two years removed from Tommy John surgery, should have few limitations in 2026.
Steele should return in the early part of the season after undergoing season-ending elbow surgery in April. But counting on the left-hander to return to his peak – a starter who received Cy Young votes – immediately is a lot.
What’s Next?
There needs to be more in the rotation, the Cubs know this.
“I think that’s obvious — look at our depth chart,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told reporters at the GM Meetings earlier this month. “We’re in pretty good position on the position player side — on the pitching side, we’re thinner.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“I think that’s going to be our focus, and I expect to explore trades; I expect to explore free agency — both at the top of the market but also looking at minor league free agency.”
That’s why penciling in a quintet in late November is a bit folly. The Cubs will have to add to the rotation – and not just for 2026. Horton, Assad, Brown, Steele and Wicks are all under team control for two or more seasons, but the rest have contracts that expire after this coming season (Rea has a club option for 2027). Depth for 2026 and beyond is paramount.
There are intriguing options on the free agent market. A pair of Padres arms, Dylan Cease and Michael King, could make sense on the open market. Cease fits the profile of what a modern-day rotation needs at the top of it: plenty of heat paired with wipeout stuff and the ability to pitch deep into games. King is more of the Taillon, Imanaga and Boyd ilk: not flashy, not aces, but an incredibly strong pitcher that every rotation would gladly take.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement[MORE: Michael King could provide attractive option for Cubs in free agency]
Of course, the Cubs explored the trade market ahead of July’s deadline this season but found the prices too steep for their pockets. Could they be more inclined to dip into their farm system in the offseason when depth isn’t as much of a concern? If so, names like the Miami Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara and Edward Cabrera could be enticing. Minnesota’s Joe Ryan and Washington’s Mackenzie Gore could be had there, too, and would boost the rotation.
Until the Cubs bolster the rotation – and then probably add some more – there’ll be questions about this group. There are intriguing young arms – Assad, Wicks, Brown and Wiggins all fall in that category and will undoubtedly pitch plenty of innings in 2026 – but for a team trying to return to October and make a deeper run, there must be more added.
Bottom Line
The shell of a solid rotation is there, despite question marks, but until additions are made, the ceiling of the group might be middle-of-the-pack – and that makes an October run a daunting task.
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