Who's the Cubs' ace? Counsell doesn't know, and it's a great problem to have

Plenty of pitchers could emerge as the Cubs’ best starter in 2026. Don’t expect manager Craig Counsell to pick a leading candidate, though.

“You’re not going to get me to answer that,” Counsell said with a wry smile when asked Saturday on MLB Network to name the ace of his club’s talented rotation.

With the calendar just about to turn over to March and nearly four weeks remaining until Opening Day, it’s a little too early to single out a clear-cut No. 1 pitcher on the North Side this season. Not only that, but given the Cubs’ current depth chart, it might not be an easy task.

According to FanGraphs’ Steamer projections for 2026, trade acquisition Edward Cabrera and returnees Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Cade Horton are all in contention to top Chicago’s starting staff. So is lefty Justin Steele, who underwent elbow surgery last April but was medically cleared on Saturday to ramp up for the coming season.

And in Saturday’s 6-2 win over the Dodgers in Cactus League play, several Cubs pitchers made their case for a spot in an already crowded rotation. Right-handers Colin Rea, Ben Brown and Javier Assad combined to toss eight scoreless innings against an L.A. lineup loaded with regulars, including Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Max Muncy. Each pitcher allowed just one hit and did not issue a walk.

Their performance, while certainly welcome, only makes the issue of a potential ace a bit cloudier.

“We’ve got a number of people who you can answer that question with,” Counsell said. “That’s what makes a good starting rotation, right? It can’t just be one guy.”

In 2025, as the Cubs won 92 regular-season games and pushed the Brewers to the brink in a thrilling, five-game NL Division Series, it was, as Counsell put it, “a number of guys” who powered Chicago’s rotation.

Thanks to a stellar second half, Horton finished as the runner-up for the NL Rookie of the Year Award. When a right rib fracture knocked him out for the postseason, Boyd and Taillon stepped up in his stead. With Imanaga healthier and throwing harder this spring and Cabrera looking sharp in his Cubs debut, the rotation looks like it’s in good shape.

That’s not even factoring in the presence of Steele, who posted on social media Saturday that he was cleared to build up for games by Dr. Keith Meister, who performed Steele’s season-ending elbow surgery last April 18. The news accompanied a video of Steele’s final pitch during a bullpen session on Friday in Arizona. (Naturally, it was a fastball.)

The 2023 All-Star made just four starts in 2025, posting a 4.76 ERA, before undergoing a left UCL revision repair procedure -- less severe than Tommy John surgery but still enough to sideline Steele for roughly a year. That puts him on track to return sometime before the All-Star break.

Regardless of Steele’s timeline, the Cubs have other fallback options for their rotation. Three of those were on display Saturday at Camelback Ranch in Glendale.

Rea, who started 27 games for the 2025 Cubs with a career-best 3.95 ERA, drew the start and struck out two (Rojas, both times) in three scoreless innings. Brown -- a dark horse candidate to make the Cubs’ Opening Day roster -- fanned three Dodgers in two innings, finding some success with a new sinker. And Assad outdid both his teammates with four K’s in three impressive frames, quite a step after the deceptive right-hander was limited to just 37 innings in 2025 by a left oblique strain.

None of the three righties are likely ticketed for a rotation spot to start the year, but all could be capable of stepping in if injuries strike. If the Cubs’ top hurlers all stay healthy, though? Watch out.

“We had some guys set a really high bar just for themselves,” Counsell said. “They put some standards that are going to be fun to ask them to live up to again.”

If that best-case scenario does come to pass, the Cubs -- presumably to Counsell’s liking -- won’t need to determine who their ace is. They might just have a whole deck.