Injury Ends 2024 Season for Key Cubs Pitcher, But His Future Remains Bright

Back on May 28, Ben Brown had the best start of his young career, throwing seven innings of no-hit baseball against the Milwaukee Brewers, punching out 10. His ERA dropped to 2.72 after that outing, and despite his rookie status, Brown was fast becoming a fixture in a surprisingly deep Chicago Cubs rotation.

Unfortunately, that’s the last we would see of that version of Brown. He surrendered eight runs in nine innings in two June starts against the Cincinnati Reds, before getting shut down with a neck injury. In the months since he was put on the injured list, neither the player nor the team has achieved clarity about the problem, with the ailment being referred to as a “benign area of concern” at one point--a term that gorgeously illustrates the uncertainty involved. Fans have simply waited patiently for Brown’s return, or at least any subsequent updates.

We finally got an update this week, though it wasn’t the one anybody had been hoping for. Manager Craig Counsell all but closed the door on the rookie’s season, barring a miraculous turn of events over the next four weeks.

Assistant GM Jared Banner confirmed that plan in a weekend interview on 670 The Score. At this point, there isn’t much reason for the North Siders to rush Brown back, even in the middle of a fervent push for the last Wild Card spot in the National League. He’s simply too valuable to the team’s future, either as a starter or a reliever. Whatever potential benefits the team may receive from having an active but diminished Brown in the final month of this season are dwarfed by the risks of reinjury, or the righty sustaining something more serious.

Last season, exclusively in the upper levels of the minor leagues (Double-A and Triple-A), Brown posted an impressive stat line: 26 G, 19 GS, 92.2 IP, 73 H, 57 BB, 130 K, 4.27 ERA, 1.40 WHIP. There was some clamoring for him to come up at the end of the year as a hard-throwing reliever, but a different injury muddled those hopes. The Cubs resisted the noise and kept stretching him out as a starting pitcher over the offseason.

The choice was the right one, as Brown pitched to a 3.58 ERA in 55 ⅓ innings this season in the big leagues. Had it not been for his injury, there’s a reasonable chance Brown could have competed for the Rookie of the Year award (or at least second place, since Paul Skenes is practically the MLB equivalent of the Bogeyman on the mound). He was a versatile arm in his rookie season, appearing in 15 games, seven of which were starts.

If you toss away his awful debut in the season’s opening series against the Texas Rangers - when he allowed six earned runs in just 1 ⅔ innings - Brown was outright dominant in 2024, pitching to a 2.68 ERA and 2.80 FIP. He struck out 10.4 batters per nine innings, while only allowing 3.1 walks per nine. His ground-ball percentage of 38.7% was subpar, but he did a solid job of keeping the ball in the park (8.1% home run to fly ball ratio), and earned every bit of his 115 ERA+ (i.e., Brown was 15% better than the league average pitcher this season, adjusting for each stadium).

If there’s something he can work on moving forward, it’s limiting hard contact and adding a third pitch to his arsenal. Brown ranked in the 5th percentile or worse in average exit velocity allowed (91.8 mph, 1st percentile), Barrel % allowed (10.9%, 5th percentile), and hard-hit percentage allowed (51.4%, 1st percentile). Those are frighteningly bad marks that portend a significant drop-off in performance moving forward, but really, it’s just because his fastball, for all its velocity, is extremely predictable.

Brown threw his famed knuckle-curve 303 times this year, yielding a ridiculous .141 batting average from opposing hitters. His fastball, on the other hand, was thrown 532 times and smacked to the tune of a .250 batting average and .352 slugging percentage. When hit, Brown’s fastball was really squared up, as hitters produced an average exit velocity of 92.2 miles per hour off of it. That, in turn, led to the pitch having an expected slugging against of .523, a 171 point difference between the actual slugging percentage mark it produced.

The only other pitch Brown offered last year was a changeup. He threw it 14 times, half of which led to base hits. As such, you can expect him to ditch or heavily modify the pitch this offseason, if he’s healthy enough to work. His fastball has the velocity (average of 96.4 mph) to be successful, but he needs more in his arsenal to keep hitters guessing if he’s going to be a starter and face entire lineups more than once on a given day. If he’s ready to convert to being a reliever, he’ll make a pretty good living on his fastball-curveball combo.

Assuming he’s healthy going forward and doesn’t suffer any long-term damage from his neck injury, Brown should be a lock for the Cubs’ pitching staff for the next half-decade. He’s got the stuff to compete at the highest level, and the improved control he showed in his rookie season proved that he’s growing as a pitcher. The 2025 season may seem far off right now, but it’s easy to salivate on Brown’s potential when next season begins.