As injuries mount, Cubs and Padres eyeing Giolito

Posted April 14, 2026 2:42 pm

By Patrick Mooney, Ken Rosenthal, Dennis Lin and Sahadev Sharma

With pitching injuries mounting across Major League Baseball, the Cubs and the San Diego Padres are eyeing right-hander Lucas Giolito, league sources told The Athletic on Tuesday, monitoring the situation involving a one-time All-Star who remains a free agent in the middle of April.

It’s early in the season, but Chicago’s pitching depth is already compromised with two members of its Opening Day rotation on the injured list. While Matthew Boyd (strained left biceps) is nearing a return, doctors advised Cade Horton to have season-ending surgery on his right elbow. Two high-leverage relievers, Phil Maton (right knee tendinitis) and Hunter Harvey (right triceps inflammation), are also sidelined, putting more pressure on the entire pitching staff.

The Padres’ interest in Giolito, meanwhile, may be complicated by the final stages of the franchise’s ongoing sale process, which could limit the baseball operations department’s financial flexibility.

But the need for San Diego to reinforce its rotation might be growing more urgent. Nick Pivetta, who exited Sunday’s start with what was initially described as right elbow stiffness, likely will need time on the injured list to recover.

Pivetta finished sixth in voting for the National League’s Cy Young Award last year after accounting for 181 2/3 innings, going 13-5 with a 2.87 ERA in 31 starts. His contract, signed last year, includes a provision that if he spends at least 130 consecutive days this season on the injured list because of a specified injury or related surgery, the deal would convert into a $14 million club option for 2027. Pivetta, who otherwise would hold a $14 million player option, spent a month on the injured list in 2024 because of an elbow flexor strain.

During last year’s playoffs, the Padres lost a three-game series at Wrigley Field in the wild-card round. The Cubs then lost to the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Division Series. To continue advancing in October, Chicago acknowledged the need to build a bigger and better pitching staff.

This year, the club plans to pay the luxury tax. Roster Resource projects the Cubs to be slightly above the $244 million threshold. But there could be an opportunity cost to making a significant move this far in advance of the Aug. 3 trade deadline, and club officials are wary of the track record of pitchers who sign so late in the process.

The Cubs project Giolito, 31, as more of a back-of-the-rotation starter, and the fact that he missed all of spring training and at least part of April might further temper expectations. His addition would potentially help the bullpen by bumping a pitcher from the rotation, but it’s unclear when exactly he would be ready to compete in a major-league game.

To stay sharp, Giolito said recently on Rob Bradford’s “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast that he is throwing around 75 pitches in his bullpen sessions.

Perhaps sometime next month, a club could count on Giolito, hoping he recaptures some of what once made him a first-round pick of the Washington Nationals and an American League Cy Young Award contender with the Chicago White Sox.

Giolito graduated from Harvard-Westlake School in Los Angeles, the same high-profile program that also produced Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, New York Yankees pitcher Max Fried and Detroit Tigers pitcher Jack Flaherty.

Giolito went 10-4 with a 3.41 ERA across 26 starts for the Boston Red Sox last year. An active member of the Major League Baseball Players Association, he declined his end of a $19 million mutual option in the offseason to explore the market as a free agent.

“The last few months have been very strange,” Giolito said on “Baseball Isn’t Boring.” “Talks seem like they’re heating up, and then it’s like, ‘Oh, OK, never mind.’ I just want to play for close to what my value is.

“Everything is based on these models now, right? Everyone uses projection and models and things like that to kind of determine. My agency (Creative Artists Agency) does the same thing. So it’s like, ‘All right, cool, give me something that’s relatively close to that, and let’s go and get it.’”