The 2024 season opened with hopes that then-top Chicago Cubs prospect Cade Horton could force his way onto big league roster by midseason.
The 2024 season has ended with hopes that Horton can have a normal offseason, be healthy for Spring Training, and have a strong first half at Triple-A Iowa.
A stark reminder that baseball fiercely resists following along with your plans.
Where do things stand now for Horton, 23, who struggled in a small sample after a May promotion to Iowa, and then who missed the final four months of the season with a subscapularis strain (i.e., an injury to one of the muscles in the rotator cuff in the shoulder). Although he initially recovered from the injury and was ramping back up, he suffered a setback and then was shut down for the rest of the season.
On the whole, other than things Horton may have learned and developed off the field that he can put to use next year, 2024 is going to go down as largely a lost season.
Hopefully that does not repeat in 2025. Here’s the latest from Sahadev Sharma at The Athletic:
“The Cubs believe that at the end of 2023, Horton was really locked in with his mechanics and at the top of his game. This season he got a little out of whack, falling into some old habits that led to him staying over the rubber a little longer. The Cubs were focusing on him moving down the mound better, leaning into his strong athleticism. It was a very simple fix that he was progressing with before the injury popped up. The belief is velocity won’t be an issue going forward.
Horton was at the Cubs’ Arizona complex rehabbing and will head home where he’ll start his offseason on-ramp. The expectation is that he’ll be ready for spring training and do everything he can to have a healthy and strong 2025.”
It’s good to know that, for all intents and purposes, Horton is now over this particular injury. A normal offseason can theoretically proceed, and then a normal ramp-up to and through Spring Training.
Where you will have concerns – and there’s just no way to shake them – is that Horton has already had a setback with this injury once before, and shoulder issues are simply scary. They tend to be less black and white than elbow injuries, insofar as shoulder issues sometimes allow you to be on the field, but with degraded performance. And shoulder surgery generally has a less easily projectable recovery than elbow surgery. And Horton, by the way, has already had elbow surgery in his career.
So, yeah. You’re not going to be able to shake those worries. “The best predictor of a future injury is a past injury” and all that. Until we ACTUALLY see Horton in a game and looking like his 2023 self, the concerns will persist.
BUT! At least we know he’s healthy now and DID NOT require surgery. Those are big things. Now we just wait.
Oh, and my guess, by the way, is that the Cubs will take it very carefully with Horton’s ramp-up next year. It’s possible, even if everything is going perfectly, that he won’t actually make his season debut until some chunk of time into the season. He is Rule 5 eligible after next season, so the Cubs won’t have any reason to hold him back in the second half if he looks like a potential big league contributor, but obviously we’re a long ways from discussing something like that.