Make no mistake, despite the drop in things and the status of perspective, Cade Horton is back and better than ever in 2025, and the expected beginnings of this weekend should be considered the most exciting for a prospect of pitching cubs in 20 years. Not since the time of Zambrano, Cruz and Prior, the Cubs called a launcher of this caliber.
Cade Horton arrives
What a victory for the scouting department which pulled the neck in 2022 by selecting CADE Horton seventh in the general classification – much higher than the projects of publications had predicted that it would go – on the back of one of the world’s world’s individual colleges in history. In this tournament, Horton has shown a calm balance, competitiveness and determination with his Oklahoma Sooners who conquered Jed Hoyer and Dan Kantrovitz, features that give the team the confidence of a capacity to mount when it will now help him in the MLB.
And Superscot Ty Nichols had watched Cade Horton as a target in the months preceding the playoffs, seeing Horton’s stuff flourished in early 2022 when he returned from Tommy John Surgery. All this led to a sub-enlot bonus of $ 4.45 million, allowing Cubs to make follies on Jackson Ferris in the second round, decisions which, of course, finally led to the first current CUBS basic player, Michael Busch.
The other story of Horton Draft Rise Up paintings that spring, which can be read like a misty legend, is that, while playing with new handles in an enclosure of lifters before the Big 12 2022 tournament (it was the old big Brett Largeur Eibner Grip de Cutter), Horton discovered a slider that has become a better track. He is still. During his stay in AAA, between 2024 and 2025, Horton granted a Woba .203 in the field with a Whiff% of 40.5.
Throwed at around 84 MPH on average (a little less than in Oklahoma), the height includes a horizontal break (a little more than Oklahoma) and, above all, the vertical bite occurs very late. If there is a certainty about Cade Horton as a major league launcher, it is that his cursor will be a worthy offer against the best strikers.
The other main field of the Horton arsenal is his fast four-seam ball, and let’s talk about it, because I think it is the key to the success he will finally have. I once emphasized a slight concern that the terrain was something of an offering to tweai, with all speed, cut and driving, but not really enough to push the land into firm and territory for me. Then in 2024, in the weeks preceding a LAT injury which would cost him the season, the terrain has worsened, dropping a tick or two speed and dropping critical thumbs of vertical movement which made life pass from the average.
This was not lost on the Cubs and the AAA launcher coach, Tony Cougoule, who was determined before 2025 to not only turn the ground in his old glory, but perhaps even improve it.
And if you want a reason why Cade Horton was so good in 2025, why he restored his status of the best prospects of pitching of the game (I don’t care that the publications have not yet updated this season to reflect this, it is only a fact), it is because they have managed to develop in Fastball. The four Cade Horton players were on average 94.1 mi / h and a fairly local of 12.6 inches on the year last year, but these are up to 95.8 mi / h and 15.1 inches this season (and he touched 98 and 18, respectively).
The results followed, with Woba (.424 to .270) and the assistance rate (15.1 to 25.5) both in the territory you would like.
The good news is that Cade Horton also generally has excellent control and good control for a launcher who lives at these speed levels. Former third goal player, he is a plus and more mound athlete who also has an extraordinarily simple and easy to repeat delivery. Certain walks at the start of the season were put aside for me as a result of smooth baseball bullets in poor conditions, and, although we can see nerves manifest as walks at the start of his MLB career, I expect walking rates above the average at its peak.
Although Cade Horton mainly crossed the university and low minors at the back of his two throws, the Cubs worked with him to add or refine three other offers to have a rounded arsenal. I always expect four seams and cursor to represent almost 75 to 80% in the MLB, but the importance of the quality of the different looks and how they play on the rapid combination of the ball / cursor have been a priority since the 2022-2023 offseason.
It was during the 2023 season that Horton began working more fully a curve ball and a change in this arsenal. The change received praise from national points of sale after this season, but BN readers may remember that I preferred the curve. It’s still true today, and in fact, I consider the curve as a 55/60 throw. The form was significantly differentiated from its cursor, only 4 inches of Gloveside rupture (adjacent to death, could you say), making it a good bridge pitch between its two main offers.
Lefts will see it at a higher percentage, but it is something that Cade Horton has become comfortable to launch with two strikes to anyone when he feels the strikers sitting on the cursor.
The other two offers from Horton, The Changeup and A sinker, are both designed to give the strikers something to think that moves the arm. Pinker is a field with which Horton has largely played in arenas that have seen more implementation recently, and it will be the offer of the right -handed strikers. The change, which is the offer of the arms to the left, is lower than the average for me at the moment, generally thrown under the striking area and not swinged. But it is no longer an installation field for all that follows, and it has potential thanks to the solid shape.
Although I only have praise for work that Cubs development staff has done with their arsenal in the past three years, I am curious to know if they have been Also cautious with its use. Cade Horton was never close to the approach of the amounts of use of the game with which he was comfortable at university; He never launched 80 throws in a professional start. He also probably has a kind of sleeve limit in 2025 since he never overshadowed 90 in one season.
A major league match is not a place for the soft use models which he received as a professional, and I fear that he was not properly prepared in the minor leagues for what Craig Counsell could (and should) ask for it in games that really matter.
However, all those to whom I never talked about Horton warn that betting against him is a fool’s race. Considered a very nice teammate off the coast of diamond, Cade Horton is a bulldog between the white lines, and he launches without fear. Few pitch prospects that I have never covered are more willing to try to beat the strikers inside the area with their business, if anything, it could drive out a little more.
The physical and mental features are well placed for the success of major leagues. Although a learning curve is inevitable and that endurance gaps should be expected, Cade Horton raises the CUBS 2025 ceiling.
