Ben Brown undergoes neck surgery, further muddying Cubs’ already unclear starting-pitching picture for 2027

LAS VEGAS – A new wrinkle has been thrown into the Cubs’ starting-pitching plans for next season.

Right-hander Ben Brown underwent neck surgery Monday, general manager Carter Hawkins informed Tuesday at the GM meetings, the latest turn in what’s become a long-running story surrounding the 27-year-old’s nagging injury.

Brown was initially misdiagnosed with an osteoma, or bone growth, in 2024, his season ending early due to the injury. After a 2025 campaign that saw poor results (an ERA near 6.00), he was excellent, posting a 1.70 ERA in eight starts last season before things came to an abrupt end in June with what was finally determined to be a stress fracture in a vertebra in his neck. Though he attempted to return by season’s end, he experienced a setback in August, officially ending his campaign.

As he recovers from the surgery, the Cubs expect him to start throwing early next year and to be ready to pitch in major league games somewhere near the middle of the 2027 season.

“It’s an aggressive move, but Ben’s an aggressive player that has a lot of hopes for his career. And we have a lot of hopes for him, too,” Hawkins said. “We’re just very optimistic that this is going to be able to help him log the type of innings that he’ll need to log to be the elite pitcher that he can be.

“He’s got some work to do, but we feel really good about the prognosis.”

The news on Brown further muddies what was already an unclear picture of what the Cubs’ rotation will look like next year.

All five of the pitchers who finished the 2026 season in the starting rotation are free agents, and the in-house candidates to fill some of the vacancies are coming off significant injuries, a group that already included Brown. Left-hander Justin Steele finished last season healthy but hasn’t pitched in two years, while righty Cade Horton is on the comeback trail from Tommy John surgery.

The news on Brown doesn’t exactly intensify what was already Priority No. 1 for Jed Hoyer’s front office. The team president made it clear during his end-of-season press conference that the Cubs will be dedicating the majority of their focus – and resources – to pitching this offseason, and starting pitching, in particular, seems a bigger need than the relief corps, though that unit could also get a significant makeover.

“It’s no secret how many guys are coming off our books, just from a free-agent perspective, and then there’s uncertainty around the injuries,” Hawkins said. “We’re going to be looking to bring in several arms. … We’re going to make sure we’re getting good deals, but we’ll be active in that market.

“You have to make a good projection on how many innings those arms [returning from injuries] are going to give you. You certainly aren’t penciling all those guys in for 220 innings. That plays into the calculation of how many arms we need and what we’re looking to do.”

After finally getting clarity surrounding what had been bothering him for years, Brown talked last summer about the potential for significant changes to how he pitches that could prevent the injury from popping up again.

After surgery, the Cubs are hopeful this can be put in the rear-view mirror.

“We’re hopeful we get a 100-percent Ben Brown next year after he gets healthy, and hopefully we put some of these neck issues behind us,” Hawkins said. “The doctors gave him a really good prognosis that he’s going to be able to pitch for us next year and for a long time after that. Hopefully, that stabilizes things and puts him in a really good place.

“This isn’t something that is usual or a normal type of surgery, but at the same time, we are very confident that he’s going to pitch for us next year.”