MESA, Ariz. — The Chicago Cubs are not shying away from lofty goals.
Pitchers and catchers held their first spring training workout Wednesday, and on Day 1 they already are embracing the challenges they will face over the next nine months.
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“If you don’t talk about them they’re not real, so we’ve got to absolutely talk about our goals,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Everybody in this industry wants expectations. You work hard to get expectations. … You work really hard to build a roster that has expectations, work really hard to get on a team that has expectations. So that’s what we want.
“We’re truly excited that we have expectations. It’s not easy to get them.”
Coming off a 92-win season and National League Division Series appearance elevates the standard of what this group can accomplish.
“There’s unfinished business,” president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said Wednesday. “In a lot of ways, that’s the best kind of spring training when there’s hunger. So I think the expectations don’t create anxiety, they create hunger with this group, and this group’s excited to get started.”
The Cubs aren’t going to be a plucky underdog. They come into camp projected to be one of the best teams in Major League Baseball. Anything less than a playoff appearance and deeper run in October would be an underwhelming season. Returning all but one of their starting position players plus signing star third baseman Alex Bregman with Kyle Tucker’s departure gives the Cubs a proven group to complement a rotation that added hard-throwing right-hander Edward Cabrera.
“This is not a place now where guys are coming to necessarily just hope they can steal some playing time — we have a good reputation on the coaching side and the development side, but I also think guys come here now expecting to win, which is a cool shift to see and feel,” veteran starter Jameson Taillon said. “The work seems different than years’ past. I know it’s a spring training cliché, but guys show up and it doesn’t seem as rah-rah exciting, it seems more like let’s-get-to-work exciting, if that makes sense, so it should be an exciting year.”
The Cubs begin camp with, encouragingly, no significant injuries. Although left-hander Justin Steele continues to work back from elbow surgery in April and will not be ready for opening day, the 30-year-old has been throwing off the mound. The Cubs have avoided putting a timeframe on when he will rejoin the rotation, but sometime early in the season is a realistic scenario.
Right-hander Trent Thornton, a nonroster invitee, is behind on his buildup coming off an Achilles injury. Three players — catcher Moisés Ballesteros, right-hander Javier Assad and catcher Christian Bethancourt — were not at the complex for Wednesday’s workout because of visa issues. Counsell said the trio is expected to arrive in camp “shortly.”
Cubs President Jed Hoyer, left, and general manager Carter Hawkins address the media at a news conference on the first day of spring training Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Mesa, Ariz. (Meghan Montemurro/Chicago Tribune)
Creating roster depth coming into camp and the regular season was a focal point for Hoyer and the front office. It’s impossible to fully predict the type of injuries or underperforming production the Cubs will get from the roster, but they want to combat that as best as they can at this point of the year by bringing in players who give them depth at vulnerable positions.
“I felt like last year, if you kind of look at the way the end of the season went and the postseason, it felt like we got thin from a starting pitching standpoint,” Hoyer said. “Continuing to add these arms because you don’t know how things are going to play out and you’ve got to make sure you have enough arms.
“Our job is to think about every pitfall and every issue, and we try to do it every day, and we’re still doing that now. We’ll be on the phone with agents today talking about various players that are still out there that can add depth and help alleviate those challenges.”
Part of the pitching puzzle to work out over the next six weeks is the bullpen, both who will be part of the opening-day pen and the internal options in-season. The Cubs spent the offseason retooling the unit that transformed into a weapon by the postseason but features just two key returning arms, Daniel Palencia and Caleb Thielbar.
“The potential upside of those guys and which one will be the next guy that hits, which one’s the guy that’s going to be throwing in the sixth, seventh inning and high-leverage situation for us, we don’t know yet,” general manager Carter Hawkins said. “But we feel really confident that out of the group there’s some guys that are going to hit that way, and we’re really looking forward to seeing them in competition and being able to get a better sense.
“But a lot of the guys that broke camp last year in that bullpen weren’t in that bullpen in October, so we also understand that a lot of things will change there.”
The Cubs know they can’t look too far ahead. The daily work this spring will help set the foundation for the season. The vibe around camp sets the standard for what is to come.
“Everybody works really hard to create a team like this,” Counsell said. “So, it’s a bit ceremonial. Obviously nothing crazy is happening today, but it’s fun to get at least the first group of pitchers and catchers started.”