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The results were mixed in Cade Horton's first start with the Iowa Cubs. There were also some things to monitor, though not outright causes for concern. Most of all, though, there were indications of what kind of pitcher Horton is, rather than just how good he is. The similarities to Cubs ace Justin Steele are significant--more so than I would have guessed, at the very least.
If you're reading this, you probably understand that Steele is far from being the prototype of the modern top-line starter. He really only throws two pitches (although, more on that coming tomorrow, right here at NSBB). He doesn't throw especially hard. His fastball doesn't have the carry that is the signature trait of many elite heaters. In fact, it's more of a cutter than a true four-seamer, despite continuing to be labeled as the latter in most circles. Here's Steele's pitch movement chart for last season, from the catcher's (or batter's) perspective.
Steele's success comes from making it so hard for hitters to distinguish that cutterish fastball from his slider. A fastball that already has some of the movement characteristics of a slider interferes with the batter's efforts to pick out one offering and attack it. The absolute movement difference between his fastball and slider is smaller than for most great pitchers, which is why his strikeout rate tends to be lower than other aces', but he induces lots of weak and harmless contact, thanks to that same trait.
Now, here's Horton's pitch movement chart, but from the pitcher's perspective, so that we're looking at his movement more or less the same way we were looking at Steele's.
It's hard to compare this to Steele's, because of the massive difference in volume. The pitch classification algorithm also needs some time to learn his arsenal better. Because of how hard he throws his curveball, a handful of them got classified as a slider, mucking with the movement average for the pitch. Because of how much cut the fastball has, it mistook a few of his heaters for sliders, too. Still, you can see the gist, right? Horton has a four-seamer that actually cuts a bit toward his glove side, more often than not, whereas most guys' run a good five or six inches to their arm side. That pitch pairs nicely with his slider, just like Steele's does.
These are radically unusual movement profiles. This chart shows the horizontal and vertical movement of four-seamers by lefties throughout the league last year. I've highlighted Steele, Shota Imanaga, and Luke Little, to demonstrate how much the team seems to like unusual fastball movement profiles.
Steele is, if it's possible, even more of an outlier than this suggests. Many of the guys similarly far from the pack are relievers with weird arm angles; Steele is a high-volume starter with an essentially ordinary delivery. It's freaky to have this kind of movement from that slot, just as it's freaky for Imanaga to get so much ride on his heater from a low release point.
As unusual as Steele is, though, a righty like Horton having the same profile would be even stranger.
The only northpaw to whom we can reasonably compare Horton is Sonny Gray. That's an encouraging comp, but it's lonely out on that island.
Other things distinguish Horton from Steele. That changeup looks like a major separator, despite its lack of vertical movement relative to the heater. Its huge horizontal movement differential should make it a pitch he can throw for weak contact against lefties, and it augurs well for his potential to develop a sinker down the road, should he need or want to. The curveball also looks like more of a weapon than Steele's.
Gray, like Steele, has success with his fastball because of its unusual shape, and despite its pedestrian velocity. Somewhat surprisingly, looking at just this one game's data, Horton faces a similar constraint. He only averaged 93.7 miles per hour, even with the algorithm reading some of his more cutter-like and slower fastballs as sliders, and his fastest pitch of the game was 94.9 MPH. His scouting report (and previous readings even this year) have him sitting 94-96 and touching 98, so it could be that he was just a little bit tight or trying to mitigate the risk of overthrowing in his Triple-A debut. It could also be that, as he stretches out toward what would be a traditional big-league starter's workload, he's giving up some of his hottest heat (and the carry that came with it) for more of that cutting action. Either can work, and he can still be an elite starter either way, but the risks attached to each possibility and the shape of his eventual performance could vary widely, depending on which thing is happening.
There's only one truly negative indicator here, and it's more something to watch than something over which to wring our hands at this early juncture. Horton has some of the very worst release extension you'll see, at an average of 5.8 feet. In other words, he covers just 5.8 of the 60.5 feet between the rubber and home plate. The league average is right about where Gray is, at 6.5 feet. Steele averages 6.4.
Since the start of last season, 179 pitchers have thrown at least 400 four-seam fastballs. Horton's extension on his would rank 170th in that group. Effectively, that little extension takes a tick off the fastball, which is why most of the guys in that range (Kyle Hendricks, Lucas Sims, Luke Weaver, José Urquidy, Alex Faedo, and more) have fastballs that play down, relative to their raw velocity.
Horton's delivery might not yet be a finished product. For that matter, his pitch mix probably isn't, either. He's close to big-league readiness, but not quite there. Over the next few starts, the movement profile of his fastball, the confidence he shows in his curveball and changeup, and the three-dimensional readings on his release point will be important things to watch. We're getting close to seeing him in the majors, and when we do, it might look an awful lot like the mirror image of Steele. By then, though, he needs to have command as good as Steele's, or have made an adjustment or two that make him materially more complete.
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