Evaluating Cade Horton's Home Success and Road Struggles

[Andrew Wright]

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

Headed into the season, Chicago Cubs fans were ecstatic about what was anticipated to finally be the year that top pitching prospect Cade Horton made his MLB debut. It took a little over a month before Horton finally received the call and was told he'd be a big leaguer, but he's remained in Chicago ever since. He made his first MLB appearance against the New York Mets on May 10 as a long reliever out of the bullpen, and each appearance since then has been as the starting pitcher.

Horton's season has been good by most standards, as he's 3-3 with a 4.04 ERA and 47 strikeouts in 12 appearances and 62 1/3 innings. Walks have plagued Horton a bit, as he has 21 of them and has walked at least one batter 10 of his 12 appearances. He's walked multiple batters in seven of his 12 outings, so that is certainly an area that will need to be improved, as it also plagued him at the minor league level.

Zooming out from those basic stats, it is evident that Horton enjoys pitching at Wrigley Field much more than anywhere else. He has six starts at home and five starts on the road, and the production for both has been on complete different ends of the spectrum. At Wrigley,, Horton is 1-0 with a 2.12 ERA, nine walks and 23 strikeouts in 34 innings. Away from Wrigley, he is 2-3 with a 6.35 ERA, 12 walks and 24 strikeouts in 28 1/3 innings pitched. It's evident that Horton is more comfortable pitching in front of the Cubs' faithful, but is there a specific reason why?

For starters, Horton has been extremely fortunate in the aspect of what opponents he has faced when pitching at home. His home starts are against the following teams: Chicago White Sox, Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Guardians and Boston Red Sox. Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh are the three worst hitting teams in all of MLB. Colorado isn't much better (sixth-worst), Seattle tagged Horton a little bit and the Boston start on Sunday was a bit of an outlier against a good offense. Still, a veritable gauntlet of elite offenses that is not.

Meanwhile, his road starts have come against the Miami Marlins, Washington Nationals, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros and Minnesota Twins. Three of those teams rank within the top-13 batting averages (Astros, Marlins, Tigers) in baseball, and two of Horton's worst starts this season have come against Houston and Detroit.

When reviewing Horton's game logs on Baseball Savant, it's immediately clear his curveball usage in his home and away starts is all kinds of wonky. In four of his five away starts, Horton has thrown his curveball less than ten times. In his six home starts, he's thrown that pitcher under ten times just once. It's not an overwhelming difference in home and away starts — and is perhaps more attributable to the opposing teams he's facing rather than the location he's facing them in — but it is something to note, and it appears that some of his best starts have come when he frequents his curveball.  The usage of Horton's changeup will always help him be successful, and much like the curveball, he frequents that pitch just a bit more in his home starts than he does on the road.

So, is there a comfort piece of the puzzle in play here? Is there a "park factor" in Horton's approach to games, or his prep work? Most pitchers will always prefer pitching at their home ballpark over an opposing one, and it may very well turn into a situation where Chicago will try and align the pitching rotation for Horton to make a majority of his starts at home, but that's not the most practical solution in the regular season.

In truth, this may just be a situation of young player learning the ropes of Major League Baseball. It wouldn't be the first time a talented player registers huge home-road splits, and it registers as a positive development that Horton seems to be comfortable anywhere in the big leagues. Starting with his road start against the Chicago White Sox this weekend, this trend bears monitoring through the remainder of the season.

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[Victor Reichman]

Horton was terrific for 6+ innings. And as I have repeatedly said, Shaw is our 3B. We don't need another one. Bench help instead of Berti, Brujan and Turner would we welcome, but Shaw should play nearly every day.