Why You Don't Need to Sweat Cade Horton's Ugly Spring Numbers

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

One surefire way to earn the scorn of a big-league player or manager is to take spring training results seriously. They don't matter, and although fans' instincts are often to hunt for the rare times and places when they do matter, players and teams roll their eyes at such efforts. Front offices, coaches and managers do have to evaluate players during Cactus and Grapefruit League games, and players do have to find ways to measure success and progress, but they're unanimous in their disinterest in doing so based on wins and losses, runs scored or allowed, or individual statistics.

For those fans who do flinch when they see an ugly stat line even in March, though, it's been a rough couple of days around the Cubs. Shota Imanaga continues to get hit hard in Arizona. Matthew Boyd gave up three runs (and two homers) in Team USA's win over Novena México on Monday night. On Tuesday, should-be ace Cade Horton was the latest to run into some worrisome hard contact, giving up three homers and walking two over 3 2/3 innings against the Texas Rangers in a Cactus League game at Surprise Stadium.

Horton's outing is the most important one to understand, and the surest way to distinguish signal from noise in spring training appearances. He gave up not only three homers, but eight balls hit at 100 miles per hour or harder, so the Rangers were locked in on his stuff. He did get seven whiffs on 29 swings, but when Texas batters connected, there was trouble. Because the one knock on Horton during his superb rookie season was a lack of high-end swing-and-miss skills, seeing batters do damage when they connect feels a bit ominous.

Here's why it isn't. These are the pitch movement scatterplots for each of Horton's three spring outings to date:

These tell a pretty clear story, if you know how to read them. First, look at the first appearance he made in the Cactus League, last month against the Rockies. That day, he only threw 26 pitches, and his emphasis was on commanding his hard, cut-ride fastball. He threw all five of his pitches, but not in their usual mixture; he just wanted to establish the heater and his slider.

Last week against Team Italy, Horton's focus was on bringing out and gaining a feel for his changeup, the fourth pitch in his arsenal when he came up last year but a staple for him against left-handed batters by the end of the season. Note, too, though, that his fastball shape was quite inconsistent that day. It's good to be able to manipulate the fastball, but Horton was really not commanding that pitch in the Cubs' exhibition contest with Italy ahead of the World Baseball Classic.

That brings us to Tuesday's game, on the right in the graphic above. Horton threw 60 pitches, and showed more consistent feel for the shapes of both his fastball and his slider. The two pitches that should draw your attention most, though, are the sinker and the curveball. Horton threw each about twice as often as he normally would, at the expense of his changeup, fastball and slider. He leaned hard on that sinker to righties and on the curve to lefties. His velocities and shapes on all five offerings are similar to what they were last year; he just got funky with usage on Tuesday.

When pitchers talk about "working on stuff" during spring games, this is what they mean. Horton did get hit hard, and most of the damage came on his cutter/four-seamer. However, much of that was because he spent the day focused on gaining a feel for his sinker and his curve, which require slightly different feel and which he consciously threw more than was competitively optimal, in order to better prepare himself for the season ahead.

Horton might experience some regression this season, after that dazzling first ride of the senior circuit last summer. However, his spring numbers need not concern anyone, because getting outs isn't his top priority right now. Instead, piece by piece, he's assembling the version of himself that can be ready to throw 85-plus pitches during his first regular-season start, with feel for all five of his offerings and the best ways to use them. To do that, he has to do some things during preparatory games that aren't consistent with putting up great numbers. That's why spring training is valuable, but also why it can be misleading for fans reading too much into the results.

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