Carter Hawkins Leaves 3 Key Cubs Pitchers on Rotation Bubble, Clarifying Team's Winter Plan

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Cubs will leave Las Vegas this week without having added a notable pitcher to their projected 2027 staff, but plenty of information gathered this week nonetheless brought their offseason roadmap into focus. First, Ben Brown underwent neck surgery Monday, which the team hopes will finally stabilize the nagging stress reaction that has hampered his attempts to establish himself in the majors. However, the path back to a big-league mound looks like a long one, so scratch Brown off any list of candidates to open the season in the starting rotation. 

With Brown out of the mix (at least initially) and Cade Horton unlikely to get back into big-league action until at least June, that rotation looks wide-open for any of several pitchers who ended the year in limbo for the team. When GM Carter Hawkins met the media Tuesday, he had chances to name Edward Cabrera, Braxton Garrett and/or Javier Assad as claimants to multiple openings. Instead, he seemed to lump them into an unexpected competition.

Cubs still "figuring out how to get outs" with Edward Cabrera

Hawkins praised Cabrera's raw talent and his attitude. Though injuries (including recurring blister issues and a major leg injury) disrupted his season so much that he was unable to enmesh himself much in the clubhouse, the Cubs GM called him "great teammate [and] a guy that really cares". However, the team seemed frustrated with his inability to stay on the mound at multiple points during the season. On Tuesday, Hawkins talked about both strategizing with Cabrera to toughen the skin on his fingers to minimize the risk of blisters and keeping "on top of it" with him via unusually active communication to ensure he's in shape to pitch. Cabrera is still in Chicago, as pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and members of the front office check in with him daily.

Late in the season, the team moved Cabrera to the bullpen—a failed experiment, but one they felt was necessary. Hawkins acknowledged that it wasn't an easy conversation, despite Cabrera's eagerness to help the team, but stopped short of saying that he would be guaranteed a starting role to begin 2027.

"I’m glad he knows we have his back. We do have his back," Hawkins told reporters. "We also got to get some talent out of him. Got to get some outs out of him."

Though the team loved the upside they saw in him and paid a handsome prospect price to acquire him, they now admit to some major uncertainty about how best to use him, or what to expect.

"So our focus is going to be more on figuring out how to get outs with him, and then you know, whether he’s happy or not," Hawkins said. That's a jarring statement, coming from a top decision-maker for a team who just dealt for the player one injury-plagued season ago. Cabrera surely has a leg up on a rotation spot for 2027, but it's clear that he'll have to earn it.

Chicago "jerked around" Javier Assad in 2026, and they might do it again.

Unlike Cabrera, Assad seems to have the privilege of heading into this offseason as a projected starter—but there's a crucial caveat. Hawkins said the team will bring Assad to camp as a starter, but that might turn out to be more about flexibility than about finally giving him a long runway.

"The amount of innings relative to just how much the fan base really embraced Javy was really interesting," he said. "You just don’t see guys that throw that little be loved that much, which is a testament to him and his attitude. We jerked him around a decent amount last year, and he didn’t like us that much. But he loved his teammates, and he loved helping the Cubs win."

That's a second acknowledgement of frustration from individual pitchers toward the team late last year, and it's hard to blame Assad for feeling that way. He's been yo-yoed between the majors and minors about as much as one can imagine, but miraculously (for the Cubs; Assad would give a different descriptor), he can still be optioned to the minors in 2027. That jerking around Hawkins mentioned left him five days shy of four full years of big-league service, so his free agency is still three seasons away. He wasn't a Super Two player, but he could end up going through arbitration four times. He could also be stashed in the minors at various points this season, to make the most of the team's depth.

That, as much as anything, is why Hawkins tabbed him as a clear starter for next year. If the team decides he's not a starter worth a rotation spot, they can keep him stretched out but use him in the minors instead. It's not fair to Assad, but it's how things are. Hawkins said Assad is "going to be counted on for valuable innings again next year," but that conspicuously avoids committing either to those innings coming in the rotation or to him being in the majors the whole time.

Cubs will do what they can to keep Braxton Garrett, but that might mean a move to bullpen.

Unlike Assad (but like Cabrera), Braxton Garrett can't be sent to the minors without being exposed to the other 29 teams via the waiver process. Therefore, the team will do whatever they can to ensure that he's on the roster come Opening Day.

"The expectation will be that he comes in and is competing for a rotation spot," Hawkins said. "He’ll be out of options, so he’ll need to make our club. Expecting to make our club, and if that’s not in the rotation," then the team would explore fitting him in as a reliever, instead. Assuming Garrett does stick around, he's under team control through 2028. That gives the team added incentive to hold onto him. Holding onto him, though, means being open to putting him in the bullpen. This is part of why they kept Garrett in the minors until the tail end of the season—to maximize his starts at Triple-A Iowa and give him ample opportunities to develop into the pitcher they hope he'll be.

Uncertainty Makes Clear Why Chicago Will Splurge on Starters

It's not good news, for the players or the organization, that Cabrera, Assad and Garrett are only viewed as tenuous rotation candidates, even by the team itself. Hawkins's remarks this week were telling. It's clear that the team won't reserve even two rotation spots for these three pitchers, let alone three. It's possible two (or all three) do make the rotation, but that won't be how the team approaches their plan for this offseason. 

Once you understand that, many things fall into place. The only pitcher with a reasonably firm grip on a rotation spot for the 2027 Cubs, right now, is Justin Steele—who comes with many question marks, himself. In light of that fact, you can understand why the team isn't in on Tarik Skubal. You can understand, too, why they're out on Adrian Morejon and David Bednar. You can even see why they won't be bringing back Seiya Suzuki, signing Randy Arozarena, or winning any especially robust bidding war for Teruaki Sato. Those individuals would each take up too great a share of the resources available to the team, given their own understanding of their needs.

You and I are free to disagree with the team about where its budget should be, but the front office has to work within the budget they've been handed, and it's pretty clear that that budget won't permit them to acquire three solid starting pitchers and address their positional needs with any of the top-of-the-market free agents in the mix. Skubal will get $40 million a year, or very near that number. Bednar and Morejon are more likely to settle around $20 million a year, but they'll each also pitch less than half as much as Skubal. 

Maybe the best way to see it is this: Clearly, the Cubs feel they need to fill at least 400 reliable starter innings for 2026. They might have $100 million to spend, in total. They might have a little less. Either way, 180 innings of Skubal at $40 million leaves just $60 million to fill the other 220, plus at least one corner outfielder, a catcher, and any help in the bullpen. Bednar or Morejon would leave them with $80 million to spend and no progress made toward that 400-inning goal. Arozarena, Sato or Suzuki would pose the same problem. 

Because they don't feel they can write Assad, Brown, Cabrera, Garrett or Horton into the rotation in permanent ink, the team needs to fill a huge hole in a pitching staff they're striving to make playoff-caliber. They have financial flexibility to do so, but they have to do it in a more diffuse way than fans (who always love big names more than the Cubs front office does, anyway) would prefer. Hawkins's remarks about three back-end candidates Tuesday make that clear. The biggest problem might be Tom Ricketts's refusal to spend at the level he should, but since that obstacle is immovable for the time being (and since they've failed to either get the best out of various hurlers or keep them healthy), the front office is taking a starless tack as they face a murky winter.

Image courtesy of Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

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