Justin Steele's Injury Is An Anomaly For The 2020s Era Cubs

In case you were in a week long slumber, you likely know by now that Justin Steele will miss the rest of the season after undergoing elbow surgery. While not officially the dreaded Tommy John surgery, the Cubs did describe the surgery as a revision repair of the left ulnar collateral ligament, according to Jordan Bastian.

In case you were in an even longer slumber, pitching injuries as a whole have increased dramatically over the past 20 years or so. Per a report published by Major League Baseball after last season, Tommy John surgeries among major and minor league players increased from 104 in 2010 to 314 in 2020 and 281 in 2024. In 2005, pitchers spent 3,940 days on the injured list due to elbow injuries and 2,634 days due to shoulder injuries. Those numbers were 12,185 and 5,445 in 2024, respectively.

While the Cubs haven’t been immune to starting pitcher injuries over the past five years, they have certainly managed to avoid it more so than almost any other team. In fact, according to Roster Resource’s injury report on Fangraphs, the Cubs are one of three teams, along with the Angels and Phillies, to have no recorded Tommy John surgeries to major league starting pitchers since 2020. 

To be clear, the Cubs haven’t avoided long-term starting pitcher injuries entirely. Notably, they lost Kyle Hendricks to shoulder surgery in 2022, lost Marcus Stroman for six key weeks in 2023, and were without Ben Brown and Jordan Wicks for long stretches of last season. Even with those, they were one of five teams to have five starting pitchers make 20 starts in 2024. They were one of seven teams to do so in 2023. They are the only team to do it in both seasons. For the most part, the Cubs have completely avoided major injuries to key members of their starting rotation. 

This is a feature of the fact that the Cubs have consistently fielded a starting rotation of, mostly, soft tossers. Intentionally so, I believe, to limit injuries like this. According to Fangraphs, starting pitchers for the North Siders have thrown fastballs at an average of 92.1 mph from 2023 to 2025. That is last in baseball. This isn’t just the Kyle Hendricks effect, either. The team is 28th this season. That same MLB study from above also concluded that velocity is a large factor in the uptick of pitcher injuries. 

The bug is that it has limited the ceiling of that group just a tad. While the Cubs have gotten good results out of their rotation, they’re just 26th in strikeout rate from 2023 to 2025. They’ve relied a lot on solid up-the-middle defense from Dansby Swanson, Nico Hoerner, and company. 

The other bug is that we haven’t seen how Jed Hoyer responds to a back-breaking injury like Steele’s. He’s never had to replace a starting pitcher like that, on the fly, in the middle of a season where the team fully expects to, and frankly, should, make the playoffs. 

It should be noted, this type of thing doesn’t cripple good organizations. It would take me several more paragraphs to rattle off the number of starting pitchers the Dodgers have lost to injury over the past few seasons. The Brewers have been without Brandon Woodruff for much of the past two seasons and still managed to win the division in both years. 

Plan A is officially out for the season. It’s finally time to evaluate Jed Hoyer’s plan B.