Justin Steele’s 2026 return now has a date Cubs fans will obsess over

One of the biggest offseason storylines for the Chicago Cubs will be the recovery of Justin Steele. Steele's 2025 season was wiped away after undergoing left elbow surgery in April, and the Cubs have kept things mum on his status for the 2026 season. That likely will change in the coming days once Jed Hoyer delivers his end-of-season remarks, but Steele's timeline may have quietly been leaked by Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic.

Sharma reported that Steele is scheduled to play catch later this month, and that will be the first step of his offseason recovery. Assuming Steele suffers no setbacks, it would seem that around Opening Day 2026 is when the Cubs are expecting to have Steele back.

Cubs quietly hint at when Justin Steele will be back on the mound

Expecting Steele to be in the Cubs' Opening Day rotation feels too optimistic, but Sharma's update would suggest a return before the end of April is possible. Considering the need the Cubs have had for a starting pitcher throughout the entire 2025 season, Steele's return can't come soon enough. But with that, there should be a warning.

Steele can't be viewed as the Cubs addressing their need for pitching this offseason. Anything that Steele is able to provide for the Cubs next season should be viewed as a bonus. If Steele returns and is immediately the version of himself that sat at the top of the team's rotation, great. However, there are likely to be some hiccups upon his initial return.

Albeit a different type of pitcher, Spencer Strider's 2025 season with the Atlanta Braves is an example of why Cubs fans may want to caution their expectations for Steele's return. After undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2024, Strider posted a 4.45 ERA in 125 and 1/3 innings pitched this season while striking out over 24% of the hitters he faced. In 2023, Strider's last full season in Major League Baseball, he had a strikeout rate of 36.8% with an ERA of 3.86.

Again, Steele isn't the strikeout pitcher that Strider was before his Tommy John surgery, but use that as a reason why there is likely to be some regression for the Cubs' starting pitcher next season.

All this to say that if the Cubs, next season, are going to avoid the disaster that was their NLDS series against the Milwaukee Brewers this season, they need to make a significant upgrade to their rotation. The return of Steele doesn't fit that description in his first season back.