You can create a wrapper to one, but you need to go through hoops to do it:

$substr = sub {
   if (@_ == 2) {
      return substr($_[0], $_[1]);
   } elsif (@_ == 3) {
      return substr($_[0], $_[1], $_[2]);
   } elsif (@_ == 4) {
      return substr($_[0], $_[1], $_[2], $_[3]);
   } else {
      require Carp;
      Carp::croak("Bad arguments for substr");
   }
};

print($substr->('abc', 1), "\n");
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substr(@_)
and
substr($_[0], $_[1], $_[2], $_[3]) (unconditionally)
won't work, because builtins have prototypes, and the
&substr
trick to bypass the prototype doesn't work on builtins.
(&CORE::substr doesn't work either.)