Cubs Starter Cade Horton Taking Over NL Rookie of the Year Race

Sandwiched between wins on Friday and Sunday against the Los Angeles Angels was another dazzling outing from Chicago Cubs rookie starting pitcher Cade Horton. Pitching on regular rest after leaving his last outing with a blister, Horton shoved, to the tune of six scoreless innings. He allowed just three hits and registered seven strikeouts.

On Monday morning, Horton became the favorite to win the National League Rookie of the Year Award, according to DraftKings. He's earned that spot in the driver's seat. Of all pitchers who have logged at least 30 innings since July 1, nobody in baseball has a lower ERA than Horton (1.11). For the season, Horton has a brilliant 2.88 ERA. In his last seven starts (dating back to July 20), Horton has allowed just two total runs. That includes outings against a then-scorching Boston lineup, a red-hot Milwaukee offense and a Toronto lineup led by Vladimir Guerrero Jr. None of it has fazed the Cubs rookie.

To slap some perspective on how good that stretch is, per Marquee Sports Network, Horton's two runs surrendered in a seven-start span is the fewest in Cubs history, dating back to 1901.

Who remembers the poetry in motion that was Jake Arrieta's 2015 campaign? A Cy Young Award. A no-hitter in Los Angeles, against the Dodgers. That complete game mastery over the Pirates in the NL Wild Card Game.

Via Wrigley Wire, in that historic 2015 season, Arrieta had a 1.43 ERA with 25.4% strikeout rate in his first seven starts after the All-Star break. Horton, in his first seven since the Midsummer Classic, has a 0.49 ERA, with a 24.8% strikeout rate. He's given off some of that Arrieta swagger we all remember seeing every fifth day.

Quote

"I think it just goes back to my process and continuing to get better at my process and never really being satisfied," Horton said after his start against the Angels. "I'll be able to sleep good tonight, but tomorrow it's back to work because I've got to pitch in five or six days."

That process has worked wonders for Horton. It's great, too, to hear his intense dedication to improvement and to sustaining this newfound excellence.

Top prospects don't always work out. It's never a sure thing.

The sample size is small with Horton, but it screams of a guy who's figuring it out. It would be fairly surprising to see him not slot in at the top of the rotation in the years to come for Chicago. Horton's stuff is that good. His moxie is that contagious. The Cubs found a gem.

Now, let's pivot to the part that could burn the Cubs. If Horton finishes first or second in Rookie of the Year voting, he will be credited with a full year of service time. The same applies for Matt Shaw, who's currently fourth in the odds on DraftKings.

On top of that (and just to pile on, because why wouldn't it?), if Horton wins the award, the Cubs would NOT receive a draft pick through the Prospect Promotion Incentive that was implemented in 2022, because Horton hasn't been up for a full service year.

So, if he wins the award or finishes second, boom: Horton's free agency would move up from (most likely) the end of the 2031 season to that of 2030. However, no draft pick would be awarded to the Cubs, because they didn't call him up proactively.

The Cubs don't need to worry about that, of course. In fact, they should welcome it. They didn't manipulate his service time. If anything, they called him up sooner than they'd wished to, after Shota Imanaga became the third key member of their projected rotation to go down with an injury by the sixth week of the season. The circumstances were beyond their control, and if Horton does finish off an award-worthy rookie campaign, he'll be worth plenty to the team to make the small extra pain of an earlier bump in his pay palatable.

Nor should Cubs fans sweat that rule. The Cubs didn't do anything to pursue the incentive, so not getting the draft pick is fair. If Horton does earn the Rookie of the Year, it'll be because he helped captain the team's rotation down the stretch and into October. Well worth it, and besides, this front office could use a nudge to act on a young player's contract status sooner, now and then.

Next stop, a postseason start? Time will tell if that comes to fruition. For now, Horton will continue to go out every fifth day and try to mow down one lineup after another, while having his workload scaled back by the Cubs. That delicate balance is more important than whether or not hardware awaits him in November.