MESA, Ariz. — Five years after the Chicago Cubs made him their top pick in the draft, left-hander Jordan Wicks is trying to solidify a consistent role in the majors.
Wicks, 26, begins spring training as part of the starting pitching depth mix that the Cubs expect to rely on over the course of the season. His big-league opportunities were limited last year, ultimately appearing in only eight games, all out of the bullpen, and finishing with only 14 1/3 innings for the Cubs.
Wicks remains confident he can be an important part of the Cubs’ pitching staff this year after an “extremely frustrating” 2025 season.
“You want to compete, and you want to compete in a big way, but it’s definitely tough to kind of balance what you want for your own career and being a part of the team because at the end of the day, you’ve got to do what’s best for your family while also helping the team win,” Wicks told the Tribune on Sunday. “And it’s definitely a difficult balance because I love my teammates, love the coaching staff.
“Sometimes, me and the organization don’t really see eye to eye on some things, which is sometimes difficult to deal with, but the people that you work with on a day-to-day basis really make being here special.”
Some of those feelings of frustration stem from what Wicks described to the Tribune as “a lot of miscommunication” early on last season about what his role would be, feeling he had been sprung into the bullpen and that created a tough situation as he had never pitched out of the ’pen before.
Chicago Cubs pitcher Jordan Wicks meets catcher Carson Kelly after they allowed an Arizona Diamondbacks run in the 10th inning on Sunday, April 20, 2025, at Wrigley Field. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)
The Cubs initially used him in relief in early July, tossing at least three innings in both appearances. They later utilized Wicks in back-to-back one-inning outings in late August before again bringing him back in late September, when he threw four shutout frames between two appearances.
“Sometimes what you get told and what ends up happening don’t always line up, and I do think I’m a big-league starter, I think I’m a big-league caliber starter and obviously part of being on a good team is you can get backlogged a little bit,” Wicks said. “It obviously leads into this year, just kind of not really knowing what’s going to be ahead. But I think having that (relief) experience is going to be good for me because now I feel completely comfortable if they call me and go, ‘hey, we need you to pitch out of the bullpen in these spots,’ I’m going to be OK with that.”
Going into the season, Wicks would love a chance to make the team in a bullpen role, explaining that’s where he sees the biggest opportunity. He would rather be part of the Cubs’ bullpen and then build up to a starter’s workload if they needed him to start at some point in-season, though he didn’t sound optimistic that the Cubs will let him do that.
“I want to be in Chicago and whatever role that looks like I will conform to that role and figure it out,” Wicks said. “You don’t play this game to want to pitch in Iowa just because you could start. You want to pitch in Chicago and contribute in any role that you can. And that’s what I’m trying to push this year is to show them that, hey, I can do everything.”
As camp gets underway, Wicks said pitching coach Tommy Hottovy has been “awesome” in directly conveying to him that the Cubs just want him to try to be his best and not worry about a role. Hottovy knows that’s easier said than done.
“Anytime you’re not where you want to be, there’s frustration, and he should want to be a big leaguer every single day,” Hottovy said Sunday to the Tribune. “But we also are having a better team every single year and other guys are also trying to get better, and I think sometimes guys get lost in what they’re doing versus where everybody else is. I think he understands that if he takes care of what he can do, he’s going to be a really good pitcher.
“A lot of things that happen organizationally, from a player standpoint and from a coach standpoint, are out of our control. So the way I try to view guys in Jordan’s situation is, what can we control? That is first and foremost. And if you can lay your head down at the end of the night, and you’ve put in the work of the things that you can control and taking care of what you have to take care of, things are going to work out.”
Hottovy was encouraged by Wicks’ uptick in velocity last year and the adjustments he made while starting at Triple-A Iowa and how he performed in shorter bursts out of the bullpen. Wicks started throwing a harder slider during the last month of the season with better, more consistent results. He’s been encouraged by how the pitch already looks in spring training and hopes it will get more hitters off his changeup, the key weapon in his repertoire. Throwing more curveballs for strikes is a focal point too.
Although the rotation is essentially set for the start of the season, barring any injuries over the next six weeks, Wicks is among the pitchers the Cubs expect to count on at some point this year.
“It’s supposed to be hard to crack the roster and crack a pitching cemented spot, we’re supposed to make it hard and if you want to have big goals, it’s got to be hard as well,” manager Craig Counsell said Sunday. “And that’s where we’re at with Jordan, that’s where we’re at with Ben (Brown). And so their job is to get themselves into the best possible place, their best versions of themselves. We’re confident that makes them contributors when we need it, and that little bit remains to be seen.
“There’s always going to be some spots in the bullpen that we have some places to go and performance can change our mind there, absolutely.”
