Finally an Injury Update on Rising Cubs Pitching Prospect

Heading into spring training right-handed starting pitcher Brandon Birdsell was certainly on the Cubs’ radar as the 25-year-old finished the 2024 season strong and was primed to serve as rotation depth in 2025. Unfortunately, the Texas Tech product suffered a shoulder injury and was immediately shut down in the middle of February. On March 19, Birdsell was transferred over to the 60-day injured list and there hasn’t been a peep about him since.

That is until now! We finally have an injury update on Birdsell, but before you get too excited it sounds like he’s still not going to be in the picture at the major league level this season. But who knows, maybe he comes back strong and earns a September call up.

The depth at Triple A has taken a hit, too. Jordan Wicks is on the shelf with a hamstring issue (he recently threw live BP and is close to returning to game action), and Brandon Birdsell — an upper-level pitching prospect who had a breakout season last summer — suffered a shoulder injury early in the spring and is not expected to return until later this summer.

Sahadev Sharma, who wrote that in The Athletic as part of a trade deadline preview, added one additional detail to Birdsell’s timeline. In a recent episode of the North Side Territory Podcast, Sharma said the following when mentioning Birdsell to Geoff Pontes of Baseball America .

“Birdsell is hurt…I heard while I was out on the road that maybe he’ll be back in July.”

OK, that’s something.

Birdsell was taken in the fifth round of the 2022 MLB Draft and he hit the ground running in 2023. He was assigned to Advanced A-Ball with the South Bend Cubs and in 18 starts Birdsell dominated, posting a 2.36 ERA with 70 strikeouts in 80 innings.

Birdsell was promoted to Double-A in August of 2023 and less than a year later he was making his debut at Triple-A with the Iowa Cubs.

The right-handed starting pitcher made 12 starts at the Triple-A level and recorded a 4.26 ERA in 61.1 innings to end the 2024 season. Birdsell’s final start of the year was probably his best as the righty threw seven shutout innings on Sept. 21, 2024. He struck out 10, walked one and gave up five hits to wrap up his breakout season.

Between his time in Double-A and Triple-A in 2024, Birdsell had a 3.91 ERA in 26 starts. From May 20 through the end of the year Birdsell posted a 3.57 ERA in 20 starts with an impressive 24.8 K% and 4.8 BB%.

It’ll be interesting to see how much the Cubs push Birdsell once he does return to game action because he’ll be eligible for the Rule 5 Draft once the 2025 season is over. The Cubs can obviously protect from losing him by adding Birdsell to the 40-man roster. Hopefully Birdsell does return some time in July, which should give him a couple months to show he can still be a dependable depth piece in the future for the Cubs.