Justin Steele still weeks from throwing as Cubs recovery timeline slips again

What happened

Justin Steele is not throwing a baseball yet, and the Cubs do not expect him to be anytime soon. Per Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic, the Chicago left-hander has been cleared to begin strengthening work and progress to plyo balls — but remains multiple weeks away from picking up a ball and throwing it. Manager Craig Counsell framed the update as a positive development, in the sense that Steele is now moving through standard recovery benchmarks. The timeline, however, has clearly shifted again.

The backstory: Steele had elbow UCL surgery in April of last year. By January of 2026, he was throwing off a mound, and there was genuine optimism around an early-season return. That optimism did not survive contact with spring. In late April, he suffered a flexor strain, and Counsell said at that time that the club no longer expected him back before the All-Star break. The update relayed by Sharma this week suggests that even the post-setback timeline has been pushed further out.

Why it matters

The Cubs are running a rotation that, at this moment, does not include one of its most important arms. Steele's absence is not a new development — he has been sidelined since last April's UCL procedure — but each update that extends the horizon is a reminder of how much the club has been managing without him.

Counsell's attempt to cast this week's news as progress is not wrong, exactly. Moving from rest to strengthening to plyo balls is the standard sequence, and clearing those gates matters. But as Sharma laid out, even in a best-case scenario, Steele would still need to begin throwing, build up arm strength, progress to a mound, and then work through a starter's ramp-up before he could contribute in a major-league game. Multiple weeks away from throwing is not a number that points toward a near-term return. The All-Star break, which Counsell already identified as a threshold Steele would not clear, now looks like a conservative marker rather than a firm target.

For a Cubs team navigating a crowded wild card picture, the rotation math matters. The upcoming schedule asks Colin Rea, Shota Imanaga, and Ben Brown to carry starts against Pittsburgh and St. Louis over the next three days. That is the rotation as it exists — without Steele, and without a clear date when that changes.

Under general league rules, a pitcher on the 15-day injured list must be activated or transferred before returning to action, and a pitcher on the 60-day IL is removed from the 40-man roster count entirely. A starter working back from elbow surgery would also typically require a rehab assignment — up to 30 days for pitchers — before any activation. None of those steps can begin until Steele is actually throwing, which, per Sharma's report, has not happened yet. The procedural runway between "cleared for plyo balls" and "available in a major-league rotation" is longer than the phrase "standard recovery steps" might suggest.

The numbers

The Cubs sit at 89-73 (.549), good for second place in the NL Central, though they have been eliminated from the division race and sit 14 games back. In the wild card picture, they rank second, sitting +1.0 relative to the cut line — a margin that is comfortable enough to breathe but not so comfortable that a rotation question becomes academic.

A one-game winning streak is not a narrative, but it is a W in the column. The schedule ahead — Pittsburgh on Thursday, then two in St. Louis — is the kind of stretch where rotation depth gets tested in real time.

Where the club stands

Chicago is 89-73, second in the NL Central, and holding a +1.0 edge over the wild card cut line. The division is closed — 14 games back ends that conversation — so the wild card is the path, and the margin, while positive, is the sort of number that makes every rotation decision feel consequential.

The next three probable starters on the schedule are Colin Rea on Thursday at Pittsburgh against Paul Skenes, Shota Imanaga on Friday at St. Louis against Andre Pallante, and Ben Brown on Saturday at St. Louis against Kyle Leahy. None of those names are Justin Steele, which is the operational reality the Cubs have been managing for over a year now. The rotation has been asked to cover for his absence across an extended stretch, and that ask is not ending soon.

What we don't know yet

Sharma's reporting does not specify exactly how many weeks Steele needs before he begins throwing, nor does it attach a revised target date to his return. The report establishes that even a best-case scenario involves multiple sequential steps — strengthening, plyo balls, throwing, mound work, a starter's buildup — before Steele would be available, but no specific timeline is provided for any of those phases.

It is also not reported whether the flexor strain that surfaced in late April has fully resolved, or whether the current clearance to begin strengthening represents a clean bill of health on that front. Counsell's framing was optimistic, per Sharma's report, but optimism and a timetable are different things, and the report does not offer the latter.

Whether the Cubs pursue any external rotation help in response to Steele's extended absence is not addressed in the report.

What to watch

### When does Steele start throwing again?

That is the next concrete milestone, and it has not arrived yet. Per Sharma's report, he is still multiple weeks away from that point. When the Cubs provide an update that Steele has begun throwing — not strengthening, not plyo balls, but actually throwing — that will be the signal that the recovery is entering its next phase. Until then, the sequence Sharma described remains in progress, not complete.

The broader watch is how the Cubs manage their rotation depth over a wild card race that, at +1.0 over the cut line, does not offer much cushion for a prolonged rough patch from any starter. Imanaga, Rea, and Brown are the names on the schedule this week. How that group performs while Steele works through his recovery steps will shape how urgently the club needs to look elsewhere — a question the report raises but does not answer.