Cubs’ pitching staff taking shape with roster moves and returning arms

MESA, Ariz. — The Cubs took another step on Saturday toward the final 26 players who will break camp with the team for domestic opening day on March 27, reducing their major league roster to 54 players.

The players optioned to Triple-A were all pitchers — Gavin Hollowell, Jack Neely, Cody Poteet, and Caleb Kilian — and pitcher Riley Martin was returned to minor league camp. The Cubs were aggressive about increasing their pitching depth this offseason, Poteet among those moves. He was brought over in the Cody Bellinger trade with the Yankees.

Sending experienced pitchers to the minor leagues this early in spring training is a byproduct of having so much depth. Manager Craig Counsell has been plain about the fact that he expects to need a large group of arms to get through the full season.

“At times, preserving depth when you have 162 games is more important than when you have 30 games left,” Counsell said. “That’s how we think about it at the start of the season. Depth is really at the top of the list, and what you’re trying to create.”

Often, players like the ones optioned Saturday are sent down simply because they have options available, and the team needs more time to evaluate the players who don’t. That’s also why a player having a good spring can still get optioned to the minors.

“The entire body of a player’s history is probably the most important thing,” Counsell said of the decision-making matrix for roster moves. “The current performance, we’re making evaluations on 30 plate appearances or seven innings, so that’s why we actually try not to use current performance to weigh too heavily, frankly.”

In other words, be careful falling in love over a spring performance.

Elsewhere on the pitching staff, a pair of young pitchers threw one-inning live sessions on Saturday at the Cubs’ backfields at their spring training complex. Luke Little and Cade Horton, both working to come back from injury, faced live batters with pitching coach Tommy Hottovy looking on. Among that group of hitters was Matt Shaw, who is expected to make his spring debut on Sunday:

Luke Little threw a live inning at the backfields this morning, including this very short Matt Shaw at bat: pic.twitter.com/45IfCxiHsz

— Jared Wyllys (@jwyllys) March 1, 2025

More from Little: pic.twitter.com/35Xtba0SPe

— Jared Wyllys (@jwyllys) March 1, 2025

Matt Shaw facing Cade Horton now, who’s also throwing a live session.

First at-bat was a first pitch grounder to short, second at-bat Shaw hit a laser to right center.

Here’s the first one: pic.twitter.com/QdliHqAUU2

— Jared Wyllys (@jwyllys) March 1, 2025

Little suffered a season-ended lat strain last July, and Horton was limited to 34 1/3 innings across Double-A and Triple-A in 2024, so Saturday’s work was an important step toward getting back on the mound in game action.

Little is healthy at this point, but Counsell said they didn’t see the need to rush his progression in order to get him ready for the Tokyo series the third week of March. The Cubs can bring 31 players with an active roster of 26 without needing to place guys like Little on the injured list to save a spot. This rule is unique to these international series in order to protect teams from being at a disadvantage caused by needing to put a player on the IL a week and a half before any other teams do.

“[We] thought it was important the he put a solid foundation underneath him,” Counsell said of Little. “So we’ve gone slow with the buildup, and we’re in a good place, and he’s ready to kind of get going now.”

At Sloan Park, Colin Rea made his second spring start, holding the Guardians to one hit, two walks, two strikeouts, and no runs across three innings of work. Rea was signed to a one-year contract with a club option for 2026 on January 13. He is expected to be in the mix for one of the five rotation spots.

“The guys in camp are still here for a reason,” Counsell said. “We signed Colin knowing that he’s going to make a lot of starts for us, so he’s definitely part of that answer.”

In Saturday’s start, Rea said he worked on a pitch he’s been developing this spring, a harder gyro slider to complement the slower, sweeping slider he already throws. This is an adjustment he’s making to find a putaway breaking pitch to go with the weak contact his sweeper often gets, according to Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Rea said he threw three or four of the harder sliders in the third inning Saturday, getting a swing-and-miss and a strikeout on a caught foul tip. He said he and catcher Carson Kelly decided to try the new pitch before that inning started.

“You’re still competing out there, but at the same time, you’re still working on stuff,” Rea said of the new slider. “It’s kind of one of those things [where] it may look good on paper, but how do the hitters react to it? And it may not be in counts where we would necessarily throw it in the season, but just to throw it to see a hitter’s reaction and get that live feedback.”

Rea made 49 starts for the Brewers the last two seasons, and his work this spring has been in preparation to pitch out of the rotation. Counsell said Saturday that Javier Assad is not expected to be ready for the start of the season in the United States on March 27, which means Rea will be even more important to the beginning of the season rotation plans.

Counsell said Assad has not thrown any bullpen sessions yet, but he is planning to throw his first in about a week. Assad will need a couple of bullpen sessions before he can start ramping up, according to Counsell.

As the Cubs move through the next few weeks of spring training, the pitching staff will solidify further, but that is a group that will likely be in flux to some degree all season. Injuries and underperformance are inevitable, so a team has to prepare by having as much depth as possible. And in some cases, that means depth that extends beyond the 26-man roster.

The nature of the market for relievers makes it a little easier to pick up needed arms during the season, if necessary, but teams like to have their starters and their backup starting options in place before the season begins.

“I think what scares teams the most is being caught without enough starting pitching,” Counsell said. “Because, frankly, on the reliever market you can kind of go get it outside of your organization, but for the starting market it’s really hard to do. So I think you want to in a place that you’re almost a little crowded.”