For as miserable as it feels in the moment, there’s a real argument that if you’re going to get hammered by injuries, you’d rather it happen in April than in August. And the 2026 New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are a pretty good case study of why an early-season triage of injuries doesn’t have to kill a season that started with playoff expectations.
FanGraphs loved both clubs, the Mets were projected for 89 wins with roughly an 80 percent chance to make the postseason, while the Cubs sat in the mid-60s in playoff odds before a pitch was thrown in the regular season. Once the games started, the injuries hit. New York lost new superstar Juan Soto to a calf strain, and Chicago watched ace Cade Horton go down for the year with a UCL injury, on top of Matthew Boyd and Seiya Suzuki missing time.
The first big reason you’d rather absorb that pain now is simple, math. Over 162 games, you can wear a bad two-week stretch. Even after a shaky 7–12 start, FanGraphs still fas the Mets above a 50 percent chance to make the postseason, with projections hovering in the mid-80s in wins. The Cubs, sitting around .500, are actually still in the mid-60s for playoff odds thanks to a still-strong underlying projection. In April, the models see injuries and slumps as noise that will even out; in September, there’s no time left for regression to the mean to bail you out.
Early injuries also give a front office clarity when it still has options. League-wide, the 2026 season opened with a ridiculous list of starting pitchers already hurt, from Blake Snell to Pablo López and beyond, forcing teams to dig into their depth charts immediately. For the Cubs, losing Horton and parking Boyd on the IL means they’re getting an extended, low-leverage look at their Plan C and Plan D arms right now, when the standings aren’t yet suffocating. You find out who can actually get big-league hitters out, who’s just a Quad-A guy, and who might need to be flipped in July while there’s still a trade market.
The same logic applies position-player depth. Suzuki’s early absence forced Chicago to try different combinations in the outfield and lineup spots. Some of those looks would never happen if everyone stayed healthy until August, and the team would have less information when it really needs to make win-now decisions. On the Mets’ side, Soto’s calf strain pushed them to lean more heavily on the rest of the lineup, and there have been games where the offense still blew up without him. That’s the kind of data point you want before you’re staring down a trade-deadline decision about a big bat.
There’s also a big health-management edge to having injuries now instead of later. The Foul Territory crew made the point that calf and soft-tissue injuries are exactly the kind where rushing a star back can lead to a much longer absence. If Soto tweaks that calf in early April, you can shut him down for a cautious two to three weeks and still have five months of runway. If the same thing happens in mid-September, there’s no cushion. He’s either playing hurt or he’s gone for a do-or-die stretch run. Early injuries give medical staffs the luxury of patience.
From a clubhouse standpoint, weirdly enough, early adversity can create a healthier culture. When you get punched in the mouth in April, you find out fast whether your team is built on stars and vibes or a real next-man-up mentality. The Cubs losing what looked like their best starter after only 7.1 big-league innings could have turned the whole mood fatalistic. Instead, their playoff odds holding strong despite the injuries suggest the rest of the roster is doing its job and the projection systems still like the overall talent base. That kind of resilience you build in the spring tends to matter when you hit the inevitable dog days slump in August.
It’s also worth noting that public panic often overshoots the actual damage. Cubs fans see Horton out for the year and assume the season’s cooked, but the reality is they started from a strong baseline and still project as a playoff team if the rest of the rotation merely holds serve. Mets fans watch Soto hit the IL and immediately jump to here we go again, yet the projection systems didn’t immediately yank either team out of contender status. Early injuries feel bigger because they’re the first major storyline, but in a 162-game grind, they’re just one chapter.
Another subtle advantage is how much more room the calendar gives a front office to maneuver. An April injury wave allows teams to cycle through waiver claims and minor trades to plug depth holes before everyone is desperate, adjust long-term usage plans for pitchers who suddenly need to carry a heavier load, and re-evaluate deadline priorities months in advance instead of scrambling in July. When all hell breaks loose in late August, you’re basically glued to who’s already in the organization, hoping for miracle rehabs and hot streaks.
For both the Mets and Cubs, the key is that the panic is happening while the math is still friendly.
Here’s the thing, folks: None of this is to say teams should welcome injuries. However, losing an ace like Horton or a superstar like Soto is a big deal. It obviously shrinks your margin for error. But if you zoom out, there are real structural reasons why a rash of injuries now is survivable in a way the same rash in September just isn’t. You get time for guys to heal, time to test the depth, time for the front office to react, and time for the underlying talent to reassert itself over a long schedule.
With that… If you’re a Mets or Cubs fan staring at the early-season injury report and feeling like the sky is falling, it might help to flip the perspective. Given where both teams started in the projections, and where their playoff odds still sit today, this is actually the best possible time to get the bad health luck out of the way. Better to be patching the roster together in April with five months to go than in September with your season hanging on every pitch.
If you cannot play with them, them root for them!