Cubs fans won’t see Cade Horton pitch again this season and it remains to be seen whether Ben Brown will get back on a big-league mound.

Horton, the Cubs’ top pitching prospect, has been on the IL since May with a subscapular strain. He recently suffered a setback while playing catch during his rehab process and was subsequently shut down for the season.

“Same injury, just had a setback,” Cubs GM Carter Hawkins told reporters Tuesday afternoon in Cleveland. “Feeling some pain in that area and at this point in the year – and this point in his career – not something that we wanted to push.

“We feel confident that he’ll be ready to rock and roll come Spring Training and certainly will be part of our plans for next year. It just felt like pushing for this year wasn’t the smartest thing for where he is.”

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It makes sense that the Cubs would be cautious with their prized pitching prospect. The 22-year-old Horton ranks as the No. 16 prospect in all of baseball by MLB Pipeline and the 2nd pitcher behind only Detroit’s Jackson Jobe.

Horton was the Cubs’ 1st-round pick (7th overall) in the 2022 MLB Draft and already has a Tommy John surgery under his belt from his college days.

He began the year in Double-A and was utterly dominant (1.10 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 9.9 K/9), earning a promotion to Triple-A Iowa for the first time. He struggled a bit at the highest minor-league level (7.50 ERA) but that has done nothing to diminish the buzz around him.

There were many questions wondering if Horton would be up in the big leagues this season with the Cubs – either as a starter or pitching out of the bullpen.

We now know that won’t happen but as Hawkins said, Horton will likely be a factor in Chicago in 2025.

With Brown, meanwhile, the answer is not as cut-and-dry.

The 24-year-old right-hander came into the year as one of the organization’s top young arms and he showcased that promise in 15 big-league outings. He was 1-3 with a 3.58 ERA and 1.08 WHIP in 15 games (8 starts) while striking out 64 batters in 55.1 innings.

But he was placed on the IL on June 9 with a left neck strain and hasn’t pitched since. He was just shut down from throwing, but the team hopes he will be able to pitch again this season in some capacity.

As the Cubs battle to keep their playoff hopes alive here in the middle of August, they could certainly use a pitcher like Brown – either as a multi-inning option out of the bullpen or as rotation depth.

“We were trying to push to get him back with our team,” Hawkins said. “Obviously Ben was so beneficial for us earlier in the year, but we weren’t making progress in terms of the symptoms that he was feeling in his neck.

“So we felt like kind of hitting the pause button and really try to get symptom-free before we re-pushed to try to get him back on the field was the best thing for us to do. Obviously, we want him back as soon as possible. We want him back effective. We want to make sure that we’re not doing anything to hinder him in the future.”

The Cubs have not provided an exact timeline on how long Brown will be in this rest phase. It has been a tricky injury, so they understand answers aren’t clear right now.

“Just a pause button, I guess I would say,” Hawkins said. “Definitely feel like there’s still a chance we can have him back this year. But obviously the longer the push-back, the less likely that that’s going to happen.”

The Cubs pitching staff has been a strength of the team this season – especially the last couple of months. The rotation has been excellent all season and the bullpen has solidified of late despite injuries to pitchers like Brown and Adbert Alzolay and the loss of Mark Leiter Jr. via trade.