Cade Horton Will Miss Season Following Elbow Surgery

Craig Counsell confirmed Tuesday what most had already suspected, which is that Cade Horton will undergo season-ending surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament. Whether this is another Tommy John ligament replacement like the one he had at Oklahoma in 2021 or an internal brace procedure like the one Justin Steele underwent last year is not yet known. In fact, it may not be until he’s on the operating table that the surgery team will know how to proceed.

If he’s able to go the internal brace route, his return timeline could be shortened by several months. A full reconstruction would likely see him miss most of next season, so let’s all cross our fingers. In the meantime, the Cubs will move forward with Colin Rea and Javier Assad filling in for Horton and Matthew Boyd, whose bicep strain is expected to keep him out for minimal time.

Then again, the team expressed optimism over Horton’s outlook despite loads of evidence to the contrary. Maybe it’s just because we follow the Cubs much more closely than other teams, but this sort of thing seems to happen to them far too frequently. Dodgers fans probably feel the same way, and you’d have a hard time mounting an argument to the contrary.

While their internal options — which include righty prospect Jaxon Wiggins — are strong to quite strong, the Cubs could look to add to the staff for more depth. Lucas Giolito‘s name has come up a number of times with varying degrees of speculative credence, and I don’t think that possibility can be dismissed out of hand. We’ll just have to wait and see how things go with Boyd and the rest of the staff in the near term.