SAN ANTONIO, Texas — For a little over two months, Ben Brown was a pleasant surprise for the Cubs pitching staff.

A neck injury curtailed any other development.

As the offseason kicks off, the Cubs hope he could play a role for their staff from Opening Day on in 2025. The next few weeks should help dictate that.

“Mid-November, he’s gonna have another scan just to clear everything, to see where he is, but he’s progressing well,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said Tuesday evening at the GM Meetings at the JW Marriott resort. “Our hope is that he has a no-restrictions offseason, but I don’t think we’ll know that for a couple of weeks.”

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Brown began the year in the minors, was called up ahead of the second game of the season when Justin Steele went down with a hamstring injury on Opening Day and developed into a weapon in Craig Counsell’s pitching staff.

Counsell deployed him as a reliever and then as a starter, proving a valuable “out-getter”. His finest moment came on May 28, when he no-hit the Brewers through 7 innings with 10 strikeouts, looking like a potential front-of-the-line starter.

But he landed on the IL in early June, and began rehabbing towards a comeback, but never made an appearance after a stress reaction in his neck. Even at the end of the season, there wasn’t much clarity on his status.

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“I think when it comes to Ben specifically, I think we’ll get some more information on him mid-October, and then hopefully at that point, we can kind of start a process of kind of ramping him up and making sure he’s healthy,” Hoyer said at his end-of-season press conference.

If Brown stays healthy, the Cubs hope he can be a factor for them in 2025. Regardless, Hoyer and his front office will be looking to fortify their pitching corps this offseason.

“Coming into last year, I think we had as much pitching depth as we’ve had, and even with that, a lot of guys went down and we were scrambling,” Hoyer said on Tuesday. “So like everyone here, I think we’re looking for as many good, quality arms as possible, and hopefully we can keep as many healthy as possible.”