Cade Horton is Back on Track to Make His Cubs Debut
A shoulder injury cut his 2024 season short. After months of recovery, it looks like Cade Horton is back on track to make his Cubs debut.

Chicago Cubs top pitching prospect Cade Horton certainly didn’t love sitting on the sidelines for the final months of 2024.
The Cubs took it slow with Horton — the No. 55 prospect in baseball, according to Just Baseball’s most recent top-100 update — after they drafted him seventh overall in 2022.
He didn’t make his pro debut that year, with his recovery from Tommy John surgery that wiped out his 2021 season and his pitching deep into the College World Series with the Oklahoma Sooners cited as reasons to ease him in.
When he did start pitching in the minors, he excelled. He quickly climbed the ranks from Low-A Myrtle Beach to Double-A Tennessee in 2023. In that time, he posted a 2.65 ERA across the three levels, striking out 117 batters in 88.1 innings.
Horton then entered last season with as much buzz as anyone in the farm system.
Working his way up to the big leagues at some point in 2024 was a real possibility. He only needed four more starts in Double-A before he moved up to Triple-A, and even though he struggled to a 7.50 ERA in his first five starts with Iowa, there was plenty of time left in the season for him to get the call to the big leagues.
Unfortunately, that never came.
Horton didn’t pitch again after a one-inning outing on May 29. A Grade 2 right subscapularis strain forced him off the field. He felt pain in his lat and decided to get it checked out versus trying to pitch through it. That ended up being the right move since it allowed the Cubs to find the issue, but it wasn’t easy for Horton to sit out the rest of the season.
“That is tough, because I’m always the guy that’s wanting to go until I break,” Horton said Saturday during the Cubs Convention.
“Having those people around me to be like, ‘No, let’s do the smart thing. You have a whole career ahead of you.’ That’s what I’ve really learned is you should say something and get right, because it’s hard to go out there and pitch if you aren’t feeling good.”
The 23-year-old chose to turn it all into a learning experience. Finding ways to deal with the injury, mentally and physically, was important. Having his season cut short hurt, for sure, but he tried to take the adversity and find positives from it.
“I think I learned more through this experience than I would’ve being on the field this year,” Horton said. “I was able to really focus on the mental side of things. All the time, adversity can be good, because you learn about yourself and learn who you are through those experiences.
“I actually read something this offseason; it talks about a golf ball. A golf ball started off by being smooth, and then somebody had the great idea to put dents in it, and that made the ball go further. I think that reflects a lot of me. Sometimes, getting hurt and doing these things, I can learn more about myself that’s going to take me further than if I wouldn’t have faced this adversity.”
It looks like the patience has paid off.
Horton worked on strengthening his shoulder while rehabbing. He said he was able to go into the offseason with a normal throwing progression, and he has resumed light, “touch-and-feel” sessions off a mound.
It sounds like he’ll be able to have a normal spring. If recent photos of him captured down in Mesa, Ariz., are any indication, he seems on track for that.
“I’m feeling good and ready to go for spring training,” Horton said.
In 2024, a lot of the Cubs’ starter depth consisted of young arms. That included Horton along with the likes of Jordan Wicks and Ben Brown. But Wicks was the only one who had cracked the big-league roster prior to last season. The Cubs were relying on unproven starters to help fill out their depth chart.
Ultimately, the “unproven” aspect of those three arms didn’t matter as much as their health. Injuries limited Wicks and Brown to 26 appearances (18 starts) combined last year, costing them developmental opportunities in the majors.
Horton could’ve helped in that regard, but again, he didn’t pitch after the calendar flipped to June. There just wasn’t much of a contribution from the youngsters due to all the time missed.
“One of the things that hurt us last year was, we have really good young pitching, and a lot of those guys got hurt last year,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said Friday. “[They] weren’t able to give us the innings that we had hoped for, and that hurt our depth a lot. For me, it’s health.
“They’re going to get major league hitters out. Really, it’s about having those guys healthy. … I feel a heck of a lot better about our pitching depth and our pitching in general, if those guys are healthy and pitching as they can.”
Now in a healthier spot, Horton will almost certainly start 2025 in Triple-A.
There are still boxes he needs to check off, and with all the time missed, it just makes sense to give him some more run in the minors. He will, however, help make up what the Cubs hope is a deeper stable of starting pitchers.
If it came to possibly debuting as a reliever, though, Horton would be up for the challenge. He already missed out on getting the call to the big leagues in 2024, so however it has to happen, he just wants to get that shot in 2025.
“I’m just wanting to find a seat on the plane and help my team win,” Horton said. “That’s my job at the end of the day is to go out there and get outs. Whether that be in the bullpen, whether that be starting, it really doesn’t matter to me. I just want to help the Chicago Cubs win, and that’s my goal.”