NEWSLETTER
I’ve been curious how Cade Horton would stack up on prospect lists once all the reports were in from his 2023 professional debut. We knew Horton, who flew up from Low-A to High-A to Double-A, never really stumbling along the way, would be a top-30-ish prospect in all of baseball, and that he would be ranked among the best pitching prospects in baseball. But how high? The process for evaluating and ranking is more robust in the offseason, which isn’t to say I don’t care at all about midseason and end-of-season updates, but the pre-season lists are the ones that stand out to me most.
We got our first input this morning on Horton, who ranked 27th overall to BP, and was the 4th highest ranked righty pitcher (behind Paul Skenes, Jackson Jobe, and Andrew Painter), and 5th highest pitcher overall (Ricky Tiedemann juuust beat him out). Not too shabby for a guy who was a surprise 7th overall selection in 2022, and, like said, was only just making his professional debut in 2024.
Now, MLB Pipeline has released its top righty pitching prospects list, which, although not the same thing, can still tell us a lot about how Horton is perceived:
On this list, Horton shows up behind only Skenes and Jobe, which is not unfair. Horton, whose slider gets special mention as a 70-grade pitch, could head back to Double-A Tennessee to open the 2024 minor league season. Triple-A Iowa seems more likely, though, and the Cubs will try to dual track the priorities for Horton: maximizing his development, but also allowing him to contribute in the big leagues if he’s just too good.
There are a number of possible ways I could envision that happening, from a simple promotion in the first half if he’s cruising and there’s a rotation need, to some up-down spot-start exposure throughout the year, to a late-season addition to the big league bullpen. It all kind of depends on how Horton is looking and projecting, because he’s the kind of prospect who will “tell you” when he’s ready. When he is, you make room. Period.
Which isn’t to say Horton not reaching the big leagues in 2024 would be a failure. It honestly just depends on how the year goes and what he’s been working on. It will be just his second pro season, and he’s barely thrown 30 innings at Double-A. Some more development time there, and/or at Triple-A Iowa, would not be unreasonable.
Horton, 22, recently got the mini-doc treatment from Cubs Productions if you missed it.
