Jason Ross

I'd imagine it's a combination of a few things. We live in a more forward thinking game today where pitcher and player health is more en vogue; teams are hyper aware of pitching injuries in a way even 30 years ago we were only just starting to think about. Maximizing innings is far more important today than it was previously. Secondly, with the invention/integration of things like pitch labs and technology across the sport, development has moved from the binary "on the mound or not developing" more to things like visualizations, data, and the like. You don't have to watch a guy throw a slider over and over again to decide how it moves...you can throw it in the lab a few times, get the RPM on the spin rate, the horizontal and vertical movement, and you've got a wealth of information; more than the former with significantly less done by the pitcher. So you only need a guy to throw 3 IP in April in Iowa versus going 6 IP every time.

I think the issue here is that you're assuming age = progression when I think that's not necessarily the reality, The league and Morel are going to be in a constant state of adjustments/readjustment. Yes, Morel is 24 and has 800+ PA's under his belt, which makes him more stable, but at the same time, there's real flaws in his game. So let's use last year for example. Christopher Morel really struggled against sweepers. We can see this in that he has his biggest in zone whiff% against this pitch, it was the most likely pitch to be called a strike against him in general, we can see this in that he has a very low OPS against this pitch, and he is very prone to chasing this pitch off the plate (heat map below). And yet, in 2024 Morel saw only 128 pitches classified as a "sweeper". That's one of the lowest pitches he saw last season. Conversely, Morel feasted on fastballs. He saw a ton of fastballs. So what happens if and when more pitchers start to exploit this? Is Christopher Morel going to adapt? Will he improve on the pitch? Will this be something that he can't get over? The sweeper is a pitch we're seeing implemented more and more in the MLB right now and is something RHP are being taught to combat RHH's. So why should we consider regression? Well, that's one reason right there: Christopher Morel was not good against this pitch and teams didn't really use that against him last year. Given a full offseason, and with teams full of people more intelligent than I am, I am sure scouting reports on Mr. Morel will be updated to "don't throw fastballs, maybe try the sweeper". I'm sure the Cubs will have worked with Christopher as well, so again, adjustment/readjustment. Point is...players with the profile of Morel, who struggle with consistent contact, are exploitable. Morel has some baseline to him, but enough volatility that I can't tell you what I expect out of him. There's regression potential and progression potential. I don't want to be negative here, it's just a post about why someone could see regression as potential...it's there. Progression isn't linear. I think it's fair to wonder just where this will go.

Entirely. If the Cubs think Cade Horton is among their 4 best SP's, it's best to use those innings at the end of the season when they may matter more (in playoff situations).

The cat is kind of out of the bag already, on the last front. The more teams you add to the playoffs, the more you create randomness. Arizona doesn't get a chance to win the World Series if there isn't further expansion to the playoffs. They can create artificial ways to decrease randomness a bit, like "ghost-wins" where a team starts up a series 1-0 like has been suggested, but even then, randomness will continue to prevail in many cases. The league has put profit above sport. And we can debate how much that should or shouldn't be the case if we want, but that's not really my goal here; mainly just to suggest that I don't think there's a solution here. The owners (and rulers) of the league won't be able to put the toothpaste of profit back in the tube and give up revenue streams (more playoff games) and because of that, this is the world we will live in.

The Dodgers have worked for years doing things like this. They're very deliberate on limiting starting pitchers to roughly 5 innings in the minors, and then transitioning starting pitchers into long relief roles. The Cubs, IMO, follow the Dodgers in this line of thinking. It's hard to tell what's specific, or what the limit is (as we don't know the number a team sets), so exact "proof" is impossible, only inference, but I do believe other teams are using this line of thinking.

horsefeathers gross. I hate these stupid patches.

I think Frankin is your typical command/control issue, where Franklin's trying to fix his control (ability to throw strikes vs balls) by sacrificing command (throwing good strikes vs bad strikes). It's really hard to tell fastball shape with HD level TV's, let alone the iPhone7 quality of video we get in the MiLB at times, but I have a strong suspicion Franklin is piping fastballs to "just throw strikes". The result? He's getting that pitch absolutely hammered.

I think he'll be up well before the trade deadline. Looking at Horton, he had 35 IP under his belt by June 15th last year. I assume he will be kept around that number in 2024...slow ramp up and keeping the innings off. If we are saying ~130 IP on the season (which feels like the number) that gives him 95 innings to play with from June 15th through the end of the year. Again, quick mathing, but that gives him about 17 starts (assuming he averages around 5.5 innings per start or so) the rest of the year. Justin Steele made 18 starts from June 17 - the end of the season, and I suspect the Cubs can tinker with hybrid 6-man rotations to give a break here or there. Overall, while I think June 1st is the first time we can start to maybe think about a Cade Horton call-up, I think June 15th and on begins a true "Cade Horton Watch" for me where any time after that, he could realistically get the call for good. Injuries, how the Cubs are playing and how Horton is doing (though I really think he's going to have little issues this season in the MiLB) will play a role here and I don't think it's as simple as "June 15th, mark your calendar", but I think mid-late-June is probably the time to start looking for it.

Perhaps. I still think it's a long shot either is even on the roster opening day., Smith is currently rehabbing an injury, Peralta was awful, and neither are on the 40-man. We'll see, but I don't find any reason to worry about either right now.

I should mention: Horton is now in camp. It was previously not mentioned he was invited to camp, so you'll have to forgive me there! New information and all.

Well, this is a very different sentiment. Maybe the Cubs break camp with Peralta as a 5th OF'er type, the 26th man, who barely plays. Sure. But I think that's far less than what you were suggesting Dom Smith is/was, which was comparing him to Hosmer, who was an everyday regular for the first month+. Which I just don't think is realistic, and is the pessimistic view. I would be stunned to see either Dom Smith or David Peralta as anything more than the guy on the back of the bench who gets a token few PA's here or there.

Franklin is the type who will almost always make these rankings: the stuff is just too good to not dream on. He's got the right body type, the right stuff, and when you watch him, there's everything there sometimes to be a dominant, top of the rotation guy. He's still young enough at 24 where you can't write him entirely off. especially when you can say "if he could just be healthy enough...". I've fallen into the Franklin trap plenty and I'll be the first down that well again if he strings together his first two starts of 2024, if we're being honest. You can make claims like he's got the best fastball/changeup combo in the system still. In the end, he's probably never putting it together. He'll walk too many guys, he won't control the stuff and he'll flame out again...but with that glimmer of hope...throwing him in that back-end-ten...just makes sense. Just to have it in your back pocket in case he figures it out all out magically.

You're being well too pessimistic and cynical. The Cubs did not sign Dom Smith and his 85 wRC+ over the last 1200 PA's on a max $3.5m dea (it's an MiLB deal at it's core with escalators in case he produces), to be the DH against RHP. Maybe he'll get MLB time if an injury happens, but as it stands, his path to being on the MLB roster as a 1b/DH only with that line is very bumpy and requires, likely, multiple injuries to players. Regardless of what they are currently saying about Morel being given a chance to play 3rd this spring training, it's most likely that he's going to be the DH most days with others playing 3b. I wouldn't even write his name in pencil at the top of the 3b depth chart as it stands. Perhaps a month of good play there makes that the case, but the Cubs have a lot of data over him at 3b internally, and this feels more like a "let's hope this works" instead of "we are going to brute force this to work". Point is, Smith is very unlikely to break camp with the Cubs.

When the Cubs selected Cade Horton seventh overall in 2022, many fans were concerned the Cubs had drafted a flash in the pan from the College World Series and someone who would eventually end up in the bullpen. Now, though, he sure looks like a member of the starting rotation. Could that come sooner, rather than later? Image courtesy of © MATTIE NERETIN / USA TODAY NETWORK Cade Horton's 2023 went as well as anyone could have hoped. Not only did Horton show that he was healthy, he tore through the minors, starting in Myrtle Beach, ripping up South Bend, and finishing with the Tennessee Smokies as their de facto ace, starting two of their playoff games. Horton showed excellent control of his fastball, kept the devastating slider, and even began developing a changeup that flashes plus. Horton is on a path that few Cub pitching prospects have traveled. This is probably the best pitcher the Cubs have drafted since Mark Prior. Based on that, it would have been fair to expect the Cubs to invite Horton to major-league camp this year. They invited a younger and further away prospect (Owen Caissie) last season, and invited more recent first-round pick Matt Shaw this year. Horton wasn't on the invite list. But I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I had previously theorized that the Cubs may give Cade Horton a bit of a "late start" in 2023 to limit his innings, and this move begins to make that theory feel a bit more plausible. We assume that the Cubs will want to limit Horton to something in the range of 130 innings, as he finished with just a shade over 88 last season. The Cubs are generally a "protect their pitchers at all costs" organization, and I expect them to be even more careful with Horton. This shouldn't suggest an actual injury. It's just that the Cubs don't want Horton to waste innings in Tennessee in mid-April. They'd rather have him pitch with the Chicago Cubs in September. Regardless of his start time or being included in big-league camp, I think Horton will get a good run as a Cub in 2024. In fact, I think if he gets a late start, it shows just how confident the Cubs are that Horton will be one of their three or four best arms in the rotation come the end of the season. When do I expect Horton to make his debut? Anytime after Jun. 1 is a realistic target. In all honesty, he's ready right now. The questions for Horton were on his health and his third pitch (the changeup), and I think both were effectively answered in 2023. At this point, it's just maintaining and proving you're capable of beating Triple-A hitters consistently, and then it's showtime. The Cubs will eventually see someone in the rotation get hurt, and while I wouldn't be surprised to see a Drew Smyly or a Javier Assad get the first crack at a spot, Horton's upside and stuff are just in a different stratosphere than those two. Even if he comes up in mid-June, that would allow for over half a season of innings (70-80) at the MLB level, across maybe 15 starts. They would also come at a very important part of the season: when the rubber hits the road, and the team begins to make a push for the playoffs. Horton's stuff is precisely what the rotation is missing: high-velocity swing and miss. While the Cubs have some pitchers I expect will get strikeouts, not even Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga offer the overpowering fastball and the devastating wipeout slider that Horton can. What could we expect from Horton in 2024? ZiPS sees 80 innings, with an ERA of 4.30 for the former Sooner. On the surface, that feels pretty unimpressive, but we have to remember that all ZiPS can do is input the data it has, and almost all of that data comes from Low A and High A, so ZiPS is going to have a hard time translating that to the majors. Those numbers are low, and we can probably expect Horton to be a standard deviation better than that. While I see a lot of stylistic similarities with Spencer Strider in pitch mix and mechanics, it's unfair to expect Horton to immediately join the ranks of the elite in terms of strikeout rate. The answer lies somewhere in between, but I think Horton could immediately become the best right-handed pitcher in the Cubs rotation and even the Game 2 or 3 choice come the playoffs. While it will probably be tough sledding for him to win the Rookie of the Year award, it's possible he could impress people enough to get some votes if he comes up early in the summer. There are other outcomes, however. The Cubs may have a perfectly healthy rotation that has few gaps. If Jameson Taillon bounces back and Jordan Wicks hits the ground running, the Cubs may decide to keep the rotation intact. In this case, Horton's stuff would more than play in the bullpen down the stretch. Counsell could use Horton as a two-inning power arm with a fastball-slider combination, or deploy him as a righty-killer. While this may be less exciting than the former scenario, Horton could still be an impactful arm on a playoff-caliber team. Either way, I fully expect Horton to be a member of the Chicago Cubs in July. He's not on the 40-man today, but he's too good for Tennessee, Iowa, or anywhere other than MLB. Wrigley will be buzzing the day Horton finally makes his major-league debut. When do you expect to see Horton arrive in MLB? Whom should he displace from the rotation, if it comes to that? Jump in and discuss. View full article

Dom Smith sucks. He's not breaking camp with the team. His incentives kick up to a mere $3.5m. The Cubs know this and his contract reflects it. Smith is here as "break in case of emegency". Maybe they think there's a thing they can do with his swing in Iowa. But he won't be the left handed bat. He's just depth.

That move has literally been years in the making.

Pretty frustrating in general, as most people assumed (myself included) they had purposefully stayed under the tax last year to go over this year, and it appears as though that is not the case.

Being as....clean as possible...there may be a four letter piece of female anatomy that starts with the letter C, and then ends with "LT".

Someone must have told the social media team, because they've switched the hashtag to #YouHaveToSeeIt

For me to think he's got a chance, I've got to see the pitch mix change. His current pitch mix is just not suited to get lefties out. The sweeper is not a weapon against LHP and it's easily his best overall option. He needs a curve or a change that's viable to get there. That's not to say it's impossible, or that over the offseason it hasn't happened...just that I need to see it myself to believe it. I like Wesneski. But his path is mirroring more of an Alzolay path to the bullpen than anything right now. For his sake, the Cubs sake...a third viable pitch to get lefites out is just the best outcome. So fingers crossed.

He wasn't on the original non-roster invitee report. That is true. My response wasn't directed at you, however. Just a general observation.

Yeah, I agree with @CubinNY; think Wicks is the favorite here. I think he ran out of gas in his last start or two, but that was probably bound to happen; he hasn't been going more than 5 a game in the MiLB and the Cubs were letting him go more and more often. It's not a concern I'd have moving into 2024, as I think over the offseason and with a full ST, he'll be more capable of going longer. But I do think he's got the inside track and barring a face-fall-flat in Spring or an injury, he'll be the guy.

Not upset Horton is in camp. Not a big deal either way. If he wasn't there, I'd have assumed he was getting a bit of a late start. But maybe the Cubs don't have a specific innings limit in mind, or it's a bit further than I expected, or they'll just limit him more in April...lots of possibilities.