The Chicago Cubs’ 2026 season has made one thing painfully clear: the organization is short on pitching, and the shortage runs deep.
Injuries have made the problem more obvious, but they haven’t created it. The bigger issue is that the Cubs simply do not have many pitching prospects with real upside.
Jaxon Wiggins entered the year as the one arm in the system who fit that description, with the reputation of possibly becoming the next ace in the Cubs rotation. Even that comes with a built-in warning label, and Wiggins is only now getting back into affiliated games after missing three months.
Beyond him, there are a few pitchers at the lower levels who could develop into useful pieces. That’s not enough to change the direction the Cubs need to take in the 2026 MLB Draft.
They need to draft pitching.
That hasn’t exactly been the Cubs’ habit in recent years, especially after the fifth round, and it has helped create the depth problem they’re dealing with now. There’s been some sense that the club might lean again into what it knows best: college bats.
And honestly, that logic has made sense on paper. The Cubs have been good at that approach.
But it’s also part of why the pitching pipeline is where it is now. If the organization wants to improve pitcher development, it has to stop staying so comfortably in its lane.
That’s why Dan Kantrovitz’s comments to The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma stand out. The Cubs’ vice president of scouting made it sound like the front office understands the assignment.
“You can’t take good pitching if you don’t take pitching,” Kantrovitz said. “One of the things we’ve looked at in years past, the last few years in particular, how do we allocate more of our draft pool to pitching without leaking wins or overall draft value?
Which has always been our North Star. We go into our draft being pretty agnostic of position player vs pitcher.
We just want to take the best player available in the spirit of trying to get the most future wins.”
The Cubs haven’t been wrong to trust their draft process. Their recent first-round track record includes 2023 pick Matt Shaw reaching the majors, and 2024 pick Cam Smith becoming part of the Kyle Tucker trade.
But if the standard is future wins, then the current state of the pitching staff and farm system has to count for something. By that measure, the Cubs are already “leaking wins” because they don’t have enough arms. The fix is sitting right in front of them.
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Cubs Face A Draft Risk They Really Cannot Afford Again
The Cubs head into the upcoming MLB Draft with a familiar need hanging over the board: pitching, and especially pitching that can actually move the needle in an organization light on high-end arms. That urgency makes the first round feel less like a luxury pick and more like a chance to start fixing a long-running problem, even if the pool of college arms comes with the usual medical questions.
Chicagos caution is understandable after recent swings on injured pitchers such as Cade Horton and Jaxon Wiggins, and it has left the club wary of repeating the same mistake. One of the names drawing attention comes with enough arm-related concern to make the Cubs think twice, which is exactly the kind of draft crossroad they can ill afford to get wrong again. [Read more 🡒]
Cubs Finally Got The Boyd And Bregman Boost They Needed
The Cubs opened their three-game set in Baltimore with a 5-2 win, and the night had the kind of shape they have been looking for from two of their bigger additions. Matthew Boyd gave them six scoreless innings with seven strikeouts, his most extended outing since coming off the injured list, while Alex Bregman came through with the sort of timely contact that can change a game when runners are on base.
Boyds line was the bigger story, especially after he worked through a couple of baserunners and still kept the Orioles off the board, and manager Craig Counsell made clear afterward how much that mattered. Bregman also helped push the Cubs into control with an RBI single and another run-producing play later, giving Chicago a needed boost from the middle of the order even as some of the lineups struggles continued to linger. [Read more 🡒]
Cubs Deadline Pressure Is Growing Around One Problem They Can't Escape
With the amateur draft still occupying most front offices, the trade market has not fully come into focus yet, but the Cubs already know the kind of problem they will be trying to solve. Chicagos pitching staff has been hit hard by injuries, leaving the club in a spot where the need is less about sorting starters from relievers and more about simply finding healthy arms. Craig Counsell has framed the deadline ask in broad terms, and that makes sense with so many pieces unavailable.
The list of sidelined pitchers is long enough to shape how the Cubs think about July, from Justin Steele and Cade Horton to Hoby Milner and Daniel Palencia. Jameson Taillon is at least moving in the right direction after a rehab outing in which he worked 3 1/3 innings and 45 pitches, and he is expected to make one more rehab start before rejoining the rotation after the All-Star break. Even then, Chicago may have to manage him carefully early on, which only underscores why the deadline pressure around pitching keeps building. [Read more 🡒]