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With the 2025 Texas Rangers season having come to an end, we shall be, over the course of the offseason, taking a look at every player who appeared in a major league game for the Texas Rangers in 2025.

Today we are looking at utility guy Dylan Moore.

How many reasons can you come up with for wanting the Texas Rangers to win the division in a given year?

One could say that there’s just one reason, and its that you are a fan of the Texas Rangers, and so inherently you want them to succeed, and winning the division is a success.

But beyond that obvious fact, what other reasons might there be?

Take the 2025 Texas Rangers. I wanted the Rangers to win the division because they hadn’t won the division since 2016, and I wanted to end that run of not winning the division title, meaningless though that may be in the Wild Card Era.

I wanted the Rangers to win the division so they’d finish ahead of the Astros, because screw the Astros.

I wanted the Rangers to win the division because I didn’t want the 2023 world title to be seen as a fluke, a team that played great and then didn’t do anything else afterwards.

I wanted the Rangers to win the division because of what a great story it would be, overcoming all the injuries that near crippled the team late in the season.

And, fairly low down on the list — but on the list nonetheless — is the fact that, over the final month of the season, the Rangers had two guys playing regularly for them who had been released earlier in the season by the Seattle Mariners. And it would be very funny to me if the Rangers passed the Mariners and finished ahead of them with a couple of guys the M’s had cast off.

It didn’t happen, of course, because of course it didn’t. Too many injuries, too much ground to make up.

But it would have been very amusing. At least to me.

Dylan Moore was one of the guys the Mariners released who the Rangers scooped up. Released by the Mariners on August 25, signed by the Rangers on August 27, Moore made his first appearance on August 29 for the Rangers. He seemed to be a good luck charm at first, as the team went 9-2 in the first 11 games he appeared in for Texas. He appeared in seven games after that, and Texas went 0-7 in them, so so much for that.

The Mariners were 44-44 in the games he appeared in for them, so maybe there was something inherently average about him, something that wasn’t limited to just himself but manifested in the team around him. Maybe the Rangers, by signing him, ended up locking themselves into a .500 record for 2025. Maybe the Mariners would have finished at .500 if they had not released him.

As with Luke Jackson, Moore signing with the Rangers brought his career full circle. He was originally drafted by the Rangers in the 7th round in 2015 out of the University of Central Florida, a senior sign who got $10,000 so the Rangers could go above slot for Eric Jenkins and Michael Matuella, their second and third round picks.

And like Luke Jackson, the Rangers traded Moore to the Atlanta Braves in 2016, for an insubstantial return. The Moore to Atlanta trade was actually a three way deal in late August, back when you could still make trades after July 31. Former Ranger Jeff Francoeur, on his last legs in his final major league season, went from Atlanta to Miami. Miami sent Matt Foley, motivational minor leaguer, to the Braves. Texas got international slot money from both Atlanta and Miami.

I had forgotten Jeff Francoeur played for the Rangers until just now. The Rangers traded Joaquin Arias to the Mets for him on August 31, 2010.

Man, that was a long, long time ago.

Moore spent six-plus seasons with the Mariners as a useful role player, even winning a Gold Glove for utility guy in 2024. We can condemn the Rangers for giving up on Moore barely a year into his pro career and getting little in return for him, I guess, if we are especially condemnation minded today. But the Braves released him at the end of spring training in 2018, after he had slashed .207/.291/.292 as a 24 year old in AA the year before, and apparently then didn’t do much that spring to suggest he was going to be any better going forward.

Milwaukee then signed Moore, and he had a pretty good season in their minor league system in 2018, splitting the year between AA and AAA. It wasn’t good enough to convince them to add him to their 40 man roster, however, and he became a free agent at season’s end. Seattle snatched him up a week later on a major league deal and, well, the rest is history.

Moore got 30 plate appearances in his 18 games for the Rangers in 2025, slashing .259/.300/.481 while helping fill in for the injured Marcus Semien at second base. I am hard-pressed to think of anything particularly memorable about his month with Texas. Really, in my mind, he stands as an avatar for the pets-heads-falling-off state of the Rangers in the last six weeks or so of the 2025 season.

Previously:

Gerson Garabito

Tyler Mahle

Kyle Higashioka

Adolis Garcia

Luis Curvelo

Alejandro Osuna

Blaine Crim

Jake Burger

Jacob Webb

Nick Ahmed

Jon Gray

Carl Edwards Jr.

Josh Jung

Leody Taveras

Dustin Harris

Marc Church

Luke Jackson

Danny Coulombe

Wyatt Langford

Jonathan Santucci comes from a family of amateur baseball players, but he is the only Santucci to have gone pro. His father, Steven, attended Assumption College and played baseball there from 1991-1993 and his cousin, Nick, attended Rollins College and played on their baseball team for six seasons, from 2017 until 2022. Jonathan attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he hit .322 over the course of his three-year varsity career and showed a great deal of promise on the mound. One of the highest regarded prospects in the state of Massachusetts, he went undrafted in the 2021 MLB Draft and honored his commitment to Duke University.

The summer after graduating from high school, he played in the Futures Collegiate League, appearing in two games for the Worcester Bravehearts as a reliever and going 5-27 at the plate. That fall, he went on to attend Duke, and that spring, the left-hander appeared in 20 games for the Blue Devils, starting as a middle reliever but eventually transitioning and establishing himself as a weekend starting pitcher as the months went on. On the season, the left-hander posted a 4.17 ERA in 41.0 innings, allowing 32 hits, walking 20, and striking out 58.

He played in the Cape Cod Baseball League that summer, posting a 3.65 ERA for the Harwich Mariners in 24.2 innings, with 20 hits allowed, 10 walks, and 28 strikeouts. He wasn’t able to keep that momentum going in 2023, as an elbow injury limited the amount of time he was able to spend on the mound in his sophomore season back at Duke. The southpaw started seven games for the Blue Devils before having his season end prematurely in March due to bone chips in his elbow. All in all, he posted a 4.30 ERA in 29.1 innings, allowing 27 hits, walking 16, and striking out 50. Fortunately for him, the injury was not Tommy John-related, but rather, an olecranon- the bony hinge tip of the elbow- fracture and he had surgery to have a screw inserted into his elbow to allow the bone to fuse back together properly.

When the left-hander returned to the mound in 2024, he made up for lost time, throwing 17 scoreless innings to begin the season, scattering 10 hits, walking 7, and striking out 31. He eventually came back to earth, and then in mid-May, sustained a rib-injury on his non-throwing side just prior to starting a game against Georgia Tech. He was originally only expected to miss a week or two, but Santucci missed roughly a month, returning to the mound in the NCAA Regionals, throwing two innings against Oral Roberts University on June 1st. The 40-20 Blue Devils had their season end the next day, finalizing Santucci’s season: in 58.0 innings, the left-hander posted a 3.41 ERA with 40 hits allowed, 36 walks, and 90 strikeouts.

The Mets selected the southpaw in the second round of the 2024 MLB Draft and signed him for $2,031,700, the exact slot value of the 46th overall pick. He was assigned to the FCL Mets in early August as a roster formality but did not pitch for them. He instead made his professional debut in 2025, pitching for the High-A Brooklyn Cyclones. Appearing in 15 games for the Cyclones, making 13 starts, Santucci posted a 3.46 ERA in 67.2 innings, allowing 62 hits, walking 23, and striking out 75. He was promoted to Double-A Binghamton in mid-July and ended his season there, posting a 2.52 ERA in 50.0 innings over 10 starts, allowing 33 hits, walking 18, and striking out 63. All in all, the left-hander posted a cumulative 3.06 ERA in 117.2 innings, scattering 95 hits, walking 41, and striking out 138, his strikeout total fourth in the system.

The 6’2”, 205-pound left-hander has a solid frame for pitching. The left-hander throws from a low-three-quarters arm slot, almost exclusively working from the stretch, incorporating a leg kick and long arm action through the back.

His fastball sits in the low-to-mid-90s, topping out as high as 97 MPH on stadium radar guns. Additionally, the pitch comes at batters from a flat approach angle, giving the pitch rising life, especially when thrown up in the zone.

His primary secondary pitch is his slider, a tight, two-plane pitch with gyroscopic break that sits in the low-to-mid-80s. Santucci can throw the pitch effectively to both sides of the plate and uses the pitch against left-handed batters and right-handed batters equally, though it has shown more effectiveness against left-handed batters. The pitch was his main strikeout pitch in college, and the pitch has retained its swing-and-miss qualifies as a professional.

His changeup sits in the mid-to-high-80s and features a bit of armside fade and vertical tumble. He generally does not use the pitch much, more or less reserving it for the second or third time through an order, and the fact that it tunnels well with his fastball and he does not telegraph it makes the pitch even more dangerous.

The left-hander recently added a developing curveball to his repertoire, and the addition of this new high-70s-to-low-80s pitch gives him a four-pitch mix. The pitch is still a work in progress and is not currently a true weapon, instead a strike stealer to catcher batters off-guard.

Command has long since been an issue for the left-hander, and all of his pitches play down when he has starts where he isn’t able to locate his pitches. Coming into the season, Santucci airmailed his fastball and bounced his secondaries with alarming regularity, making him inefficient as well. While some of his command issues stem from the movement in his pitches, almost unbelievably for a highly-regarded college pitching prospect who was drafted fairly high in his respective draft, some his command issues have come down to simply needing to throw more and learn how to repeat his mechanics and release points better; Santucci was primarily an outfielder during his high school baseball days, and after transitioning to being a pitcher full-time while at Duke, he still only threw 128.1 innings in total, supplemented by another 26.2 in collegiate summer leagues. While pitching for Brooklyn, manager Gilbert Gomez observed that Santucci had to do more on-the-job learning than most pitches his age and level and was pleased with how the left-hander began recognizing and self-correcting issues during his tenure with the Cyclones.

While he did not show any issues over the course of 2025, health may be an issue for Santucci over the course of his professional career. While his 2024 rib injury was seemingly random and has not been problematic since, the elbow issue he sustained and had surgically fixed in 2023 may have a recurring impact on his career given the location of the injury.

The people have spoken and Angel Genao is our No. 5 Cleveland Guardians prospect. Genao won with a 40.1% of the vote, beating out Cooper Ingle (26.8%), Braylon Doughty (15.5%) and Khal Stephen (11.3%). He moves down one spot from No. 5 last year.

Genao received a $1.175 million signing bonus out of the Dominican Republic in Cleveland’s 2021 international class, tops in Cleveland’s class. In his debut season for the Dominican Summer League, the switch-hitting shortstop slashed .265/.422/.364 with an impressive 20.3% walk rate. The following season, he moved to the United States, where he dominated the Arizona Complex League to the tune of a .322/.394/.416 slash.

Genao spent his entire 2023 campaign with Lynchburg at age 19, slashing .263/.345/.385, although he missed the first two months of the season because of knee surgery. Once fully healthy in 2024, Cleveland chose to repeat him at Lynchburg and the move paid off.

Genao slashed .322/.377/.463 with a 166 wRC+ in Lynchburg, which earned him a promotion to Lake County, where he didn’t slow down, slashing .322/.377/.463 with 13 stolen bases over 66 games played, good for a 140 wRC+. He finished his season with a career-high 10 home runs, more than double his previous best of four in 2023. He has also had pretty even splits against LHP and RHP as a professional.

Genao began 2025 with an aggressive placement at Double-A Akron for his age-21 season, but he was hampered by an injury. He didn’t debut in Akron until early June due to a right shoulder sprain and it never seemed like he was able to fully put it together, finishing the year with a disappointing .263/.332/.382 slash and a ho-hum 103 wRC+ in 77 games at Akron.

Hopefully he can put the shoulder issues behind him in 2026 and get back to his dominant 2024 self.

Now, it’s time to determine who is number five in the Guardians’ loaded farm system! Your options are below:

Juneiker Caceres, OF (Age 18)
2025 (CPX) 160 PA, .289/.419/.469, 3 HR, 5 SB, 16.9 BB%, 11.3 K%, 139 wRC+
2025 (A): 130 PA, .250/.331/.345, 1 HR, 2 SB, 6.9 BB%, 13.1 K%, 103 wRC+

Impressed at the complex league, then hit the ground running in a late season promotion to Single-A before running out of steam late in his age-17 season. Loaded with potential.

Jaison Chourio, OF (Age 20)
2025 (CPX) 27 PA, .261/.370/.304, 0 HR, 1 SB, 14.8 BB%, 37.0 K%, 95 wRC+
2025 (A+): 353 PA, .235/.380/.284, 2 HR, 9 SB, 18.7 BB%, 21.8 K%, 103 wRC+

Chourio was lining up to be Cleveland’s top prospect after a sensational 2024, but he was slowed in 2025 by a nagging shoulder injury and had a very average season. He’s looking to bounce back in 2026.

Braylon Doughty, RHP (Age 20)
2025 (A): 22 GS, 85.1 IP, 3.48 ERA, 2.84 FIP, 27.3%, 6.4%, 1.25 WHIP

Cleveland’s competitive balance first round pick in 2024, Doughty debuted in full-season ball and put up solid numbers in his age-19 season at Single-A, showcasing elite control.

Cooper Ingle, C (Age 23)
2025 (AA) 403 PA, .273/.391/.443, 9 HR, 0 SB, 16.1 BB%, 17.4 K%, 148 wRC+
2025 (AAA) 107 PA, .207/.383/.329, 1 HR, 0 SB, 19.6 BB%, 16.7K%, 105 wRC+

Ingle has shown excellent offensive tendencies for a catcher. Will his defense and power be enough to earn an opportunity in Cleveland this year?

Jace LaViolette, OF (Age 22)
2025 (NCAA) 262 PA, .258/.427/.576, 18 HR, 7 SB, 21.8 BB%, 25.2K%, 120 wRC+

Cleveland’s first round pick in the 2025 MLB Draft, the 6-foot-6 LaViolette instantly becomes one of the top power hitting prospects in the system. Strikeouts and contact have been an issue, however.

Alfonsin Rosario, OF (Age 21)
2025 (A+) 354 PA, .268/.362/.490, 16 HR, 12 SB, 10.8 BB%, 25.1 K%, 139 wRC+
2025 (AA): 145 PA, .211/.303/.391, 5 HR, 2 SB, 10.3 BB%, 33.1 K%, 105 wRC+

One of Cleveland’s most impressive hitters in its minor league system during his stint at High-A Lake County as a 20-year-old. Rosario has a unique combination of speed and power, but will need to overcome his strikeouts.

Khal Stephen, RHP (Age 23)
w/ TOR 2025 (A) 7 GS, 39.1 IP, 2.06 ERA, 1.97 FIP, 31.4 K%, 4.6 BB%, 0.92 WHIP
w/ TOR 2025 (A+): 9 GS, 48.1 IP, 1.49 ERA, 2.70 FIP, 26.6 K%, 5.4 BB%, 0.85 WHIP
w/ TOR 2025 (AA): 1 GS, 4.0 IP, 6.35 ERA, 1.88 FIP, 11.1 K%, 5.6 BB%, 1.68 WHIP
2025 (AA): 4 GS, 11.1 IP, 9.00 ERA, 9.54 FIP, 21.9 K%, 3.9 BB%, 1.50 WHIP

Acquired from Toronto in the Shane Bieber trade, Stephen rocketed through the minor league system in 2025 before hitting a wall in Double-A.He instantly became one of Cleveland’s top pitching prospects.

Welcome back to A Pod of Their Own, an all-women led Home Run Applesauce podcast where we talk all things Mets, social justice issues in baseball, and normalize female voices in the sports podcasting space. 

This week, we begin by discussing the very busy 24 hours for the Mets between Thursday night when they missed out on Kyle Tucker and Friday afternoon when they pivoted to Bo Bichette instead. We also talk about whether a salary cap or a lockout is coming for baseball and where the Mets go from here this offseason.

We also talk about the state of the NL East with the Mets sniping Bichette from the Phillies and the Braves losing their starting shortstop to injury for the first half of the season. We also shout out the record-breaking attendance at Capital One Arena in Washington DC for the PWHL game between the New York Sirens and the Montreal Victorie.

Finally, we wrap things up with Walk-off Wins, where each of us talks about what’s making us happy this week, baseball-related or otherwise. 

You can listen or subscribe to all of our wonderful Home Run Applesauce podcasts through Apple Podcasts, where we encourage you to leave a review if you enjoy the show. It really helps! And you can find us on the Stitcher app, Spotify, or listen wherever you get podcasts. You can also support our work by subscribing to our Patreon, which will get you bonus episodes, access to our Discord server, livestream experiences, an exclusive monthly playlist, and more!

You can follow A Pod of Their Own on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky (@apodoftheirown) and you can follow Home Run Applesauce on Twitter and Instagram (@HRApplesauce). You can also follow our co-hosts on Twitter and Bluesky: Allison McCague (@PetitePhD), Maggie Wiggin (@maggie162), and LindaSurovich (@LindaSurovich). You can also email the show at aa.apodoftheirown@gmail.com. 

Look for A Pod of Their Own in your feeds every week and don’t forget: there’s no crying in podcasting!

28. Konner Eaton (75 points, 12 ballots)

Eaton, a 23-year-old lefty pitcher, was a bit below the radar entering 2025, but his size and athleticism were intriguing. He throws in the lower half of the 90s and boasts a slider whose late horizontal movement is effective against hitters from both sides of the plate. Eaton has a sturdy, durable frame (6’3”, 210 pounds) that projects well as a traditional starting pitcher. His delivery is athletic, though he has worked on simplifying his mechanics since turning professional to improve his overall strike-throwing ability.

Eaton, who signed for a full-slot bonus of $378.9k after getting drafted in the sixth round in 2024, threw 62 innings across 14 starts in his platform draft year, though his results (5.66 ERA, 1.58 WHIP, 4.9 BB/9 rate, 11.9 K/9 rate) weren’t strong and the level of competition wasn’t notably high. Unusually for a newly-drafted pitcher, Eaton actually saw some action in affiliated ball as well, throwing 11 innings across nine relief appearances in Low-A Fresno and High-A Spokane, allowing just one run on six hits and three walks while striking out 16.

In 2025, Eaton was assigned back to High-A Spokane, where he was 1.2 years younger than league average. Eaton was a rotation stalwart for Spokane, starting 23 games and throwing 121 1/3 innings with a 3.56 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 9.3 K/9 rate, and 3.1 BB/9 rate while holding lefties to a .603 OPS. That includes quality starts in seven of eight starts between mid-June and early August. In mid-August, Eaton was promoted to Double-A Hartford, where he was 2.7 years younger than league average. He took the mound for another four starts in the Eastern League, throwing 18 2/3 innings with a nice 11.6 K/9 rate, albeit a 5.30 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, and 4.8 BB/9 rate.

Here’s a look at Eaton’s 2025 highlights:

Eaton was ranked 180th overall in the 2024 draft rankings by MLB Pipeline and is currently ranked 21st in the system as a 40 FV prospect with a 55 grade on his slider and 50s on the fastball and changeup:

At 6-foot-3, Eaton’s combination of size and athleticism have long intrigued scouts. While he typically runs his fastball up to about 94 mph, it can miss bats with solid inverted vertical break. His low-80s sweeping slider is an above-average breaking ball that can serve as an out pitch at times, and while his changeup has been inconsistent in the past, it’s a third effective offering for the southpaw.

After walking 5.0 per nine innings over the course of his George Mason career, there were questions about Eaton’s ability to start long term. He was finding the zone much more consistently at the outset of his pro career, and if that continues along with his three-pitch mix, he does have the chance to stick in a rotation. If not, the fastball-slider combination could play up coming out of the ‘pen in shorter stints.

Eaton’s “vertical” attack plan (high fastballs and sweepy sliders) is a good fit for Coors Field if he can locate well, as high-spin sliders are less affected by the thin air than traditional curveballs. Eaton’s total 140 frames in 2025 represents a clear starter’s workload in this day and age, setting him up to be an innings eater option in the upper minors or even MLB.

Eaton should head back to Hartford to begin the year, so a reasonable trajectory might be to see him in purple pinstripes by the end of 2027. He might yet be sent to the bullpen if his command falters against upper minors hitting, but the current starting role and results make him a 35+ FV player in my book, one who just missed inclusion on my ballot.

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Although the Royals have added Isaac Collins and Lane Thomas to their lineup, the offseason still feels incomplete. The Royals could use another outfielder to provide depth and give more options on offense. Reports are that a trade for Jarren Duran of the Red Sox or Brendan Donovan of the Cardinals are “increasingly unlikely,” the Royals may have to turn to a thin free agent market.

One of the outfield bats still available is 30-year-old Miguel Andujar. Andujar is coming off a career resurgence, in which he hit .318/.352/.470 with 10 home runs in 341 plate appearances with the Athletics and Reds last season. According to New York Post reporter Jon Heyman, the right-handed hitting outfielder is drawing “significant interest” with Rangers, Padres, Cardinals, Reds, Cubs, and Athletics among the teams “in play.”

Andujar was once a highly-touted top 100 prospect with the Yankees. In 2018, he hit .297/.328/.527 with 27 home runs as a rookie, finishing behind only Shohei Ohtani, then of the Angels, in Rookie of the Year voting. He missed most of the next season following shoulder surgery, and struggled to hit the next few years with the Yankees. The Pirates claimed him off waivers in 2022, and the Athletics picked him up after the 2023 season.

After a wrist injury set him back to begin the year, Andujar’s got off to a hot start in 2024. He hit .285/.320/.377 in 75 games with the A’s, but he missed the final month with a core muscle injury that would require surgery. In 2025, he got off to a decent start but went on an absolute tear over the last two months. After July 25, he hit .372/.411/.620 with seven home runs in his last 39 games.

Andujar obliterated lefties last year, hitting .389/.409/.578 against them, and he hit .411 against southpaws in 2024, although in just 61 plate appearances.

He also puts the ball in play. Andujar has a strikeout rate of just 13.8 percent over the last two seasons, 21st-lowest among players with at least 600 plate appearances. He has a 92.9 percent contact rate on pitches in the strike zone in that time, one of the highest rates in baseball. He hardly ever walks, but he is a tough out – over the last two seasons, he has hit .269 with two strikes on him, the fifth-highest average in baseball in those situations.

Andujar is not particularly fast, and he has negative Baserunning Runs in each of the last two seasons. He split his time mostly between third base and left field last year, and was a poor defender at each position.

Andujar is probably looking for a two-year deal, but at this point in the offseason, he will likely have to settle for a one-year contract, even with the alleged suitors Heyman mentions. He has value as a role player, likely in a platoon role, but is not worth investing in long-term. The Royals may be up against their budgetary limitations, but Andujar shouldn’t break the bank. I would expect him to sign for between $6-8 million, with maybe a $9-10 million club or mutual option for 2027 with a $1 million buyout.

The Royals have two left-handed-hitting outfielder with Kyle Isbel and Jac Caglianone. Isaac Collins is a switch-hitter without much of a platoon split, and Lane Thomas is a right-hander. Andujar could slot in there and spell Isbel and occasionally Caglianone (unless his reverse split last year was for real) and give the Royals a weapon against lefties. It isn’t the impact bat the Royals are looking for, but even incremental upgrades can help and the Royals can always reassess the market this summer if they are in contention.

Cubs left-hander Justin Steele made just four starts in 2025 before missing the rest of the season with Tommy John surgery. That surgery took place April 18, 2025, and the normal time frame for returning is between 12 and 15 months.

That means, theoretically, that Steele could be back pitching sometime in late April, though that’s likely not going to happen. Most probably, Steele will be placed on the 60-day injured list whenever that list opens, usually sometime in early March, which would mean the first game back for him would be in early May.

The Cubs, though, will likely be more cautious, but Meghan Montemurro reported in the Tribune that Steele’s rehab process is going well and ahead of schedule:

Steele took a step forward in his rehab process Friday when he threw off a mound for the first time since he underwent season-ending elbow surgery in April. Steele said Saturday he is feeling really good and hasn’t suffered any setbacks.

“There hasn’t really been any hiccups at all through this process,” Steele said. “It’s felt good the entire time. If anything, we’re ahead of schedule. Kind of been pushing the envelope the entire time, wanting to get off the mound, push the footage back as far as the throwing progression goes. But, yeah, it’s full steam ahead.”

Steele expects his surgeon, Dr. Keith Meister, will want him to be on some level of an innings limit for 2026 and so he anticipates that will impact when he comes back, though the belief is it will be sometime early in the season. The Cubs envision playing in October and making a deeper run this year, lessening a rush to get Steele back as soon as possible, especially with the depth they have built for the rotation.

The last sentence is the most important. This sort of thing is something the Dodgers, for example, have done — put together a deep rotation so that injured pitchers don’t have to rush back. For example, Blake Snell made just 11 starts during the 2025 regular season, but started five times (and appeared in six games) during the Dodgers’ postseason run.

The acquisition of Edward Cabrera means the Cubs already have a solid rotation that includes Matthew Boyd, Cade Horton, Shōta Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. Colin Rea, who started 27 times for the Cubs in 2025, is thus pushed to a long relief/swingman role, and Javier Assad, who started seven games down the stretch for the Cubs last year, probably starts the year at Triple-A Iowa being stretched out to start.

Thus Steele’s return could even be delayed until after the All-Star break, with a somewhat leisurely rehab assignment before that to make sure he’s 100 percent. That would be a bonus to the Cubs, to be able to add a starter of Steele’s caliber in late July, almost like a trade deadline acquisition.

Give Jed Hoyer credit — he’s addressed the starting rotation by acquiring Cabrera, which helps give the staff more depth, and here’s hoping when Steele comes back, he’s ready to produce — similar to the way Boyd did for the Guardians when he returned from TJS in August 2024. You probably remember that first Boyd start — it was against the Cubs Aug. 13, 2024, and he shut them down for 5.1 innings with six strikeouts.

Here’s hoping for a similar return for Steele.