It’s Time For Hoyer, Cubs To Think Pitching In The Draft

Cade Horton isn’t going to the All-Star Game but he’s quietly been a valuable part of a Cubs team that is leading the National League Central.

The former College World Series star for the University of Oklahoma star slipped into the starting rotation on May 10, after fellow lefty Shota Imanaga was sidelined with a hamstring injury, and has pitched well enough for Craig Counsell’s team to win six of his first nine starts.

It’s worth considering that impact as the Cubs head into the amateur draft on Sunday. They will pick 17th and have only one other pick in the first 94, so it’s important they make the most of their first-rounder.

Horton, who struck out 13 against Ole Miss in the deciding game of the CWS, was selected with the seventh overall pick in 2022. He’s something of an outlier for the Cubs, who have strongly favored college hitters with their first-round picks. They hit it big with Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber and Ian Happ in 2013-15.

Theo Epstein trusts college hitters more than any other draft commodity. That preference left the Cubs with a quantity over quality approach in assembling amateur pitching since Epstein’s arrival. He worried about both the greater likelihood of pitcher injuries and the volatile nature of their performances.

Left unsaid — at least publicly — was the hope pitchers would, as they matured, regularly out-perform their amateur standing.

Because the Cubs had overspent their international signing limit in 2013 (when they spent heavily on Eloy Jimenez, Gleyber Torres, Jen Ho Tseng and others), they were limited to a maximum bonus of $250,000 in ’14. Epstein’s strategy was to round up as many hard-throwing leftovers and give them $20,000 apiece, searching for diamonds in the rough.

Organizational results have been telling. The Cubs haven’t drafted or signed a pitcher with staying power beyond a few seasons since Jim Hendry was in charge, when they built teams around Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and Carlos Zambrano.

The closest they have come is Kyle Hendricks, the Game Seven starter in 2016 who spent 11 seasons in the starting rotation. But the Professor, as he was known, was already in Double-A when the Cubs acquired him from Texas in one of Epstein’s earliest trades.

Justin Steele, a left-hander who was drafted in the fifth round of the 2014 draft, seemed set to break through after a 16-win season in 2023. But Steele instead has demonstrated the precarious nature of pitching. He battled hamstring and elbow injuries in ’24, working only 134 2/3 innings, and underwent Tommy John surgery in April. He’ll need to re-establish himself when he returns next season.

The Cubs have selected a pitcher in the first round only four times in their last 13 drafts, with Horton the only one they’ve taken with a top-20 pick. This is the ninth time since Epstein’s arrival they’ve pick as high as 17 but they’ve used seven of those eight picks on infielders Nico Hoerner, Ed Howard, Matt Shaw and Cam Smith in addition to Bryant, Schwarber and Happ.

Since 2012, the Cubs have used 36 of their top 65 picks on pitchers but invested $2 million in only four those pitchers, with Horton’s $4.45-million bonus their biggest. They did spend over-slot to sign high school pitchers Dylan Cease in ($1.5 million) in 2014 and Jeremiah Estrada ($1 million) in ’17) but then traded Cease and lost Estrada on waivers.

The failure to develop a pipeline of minor-league pitching has forced the Cubs to rely on acquiring pitchers in trades or through free agency. They’ll need a pipeline of homegrown pitching more than ever if they do extend run-producer Kyle Tucker beyond this season, given the percentage of payroll Tucker will command.

This draft will be remembered as a success if they can find a long-term piece of their rotation with the 17th pick.