Before his start this weekend, I saw someone post that Cade Horton’s NL Rookie of the Year odds at DraftKings had reached +2500, behind only Matt Shaw (+2000), Braves catcher Drake Baldwin (+155), and Brewers outfielder Isaac Collins (-180). If you’re not versed in betting lines, the very short version there is that Collins was a strong favorite, Baldwin was a strong number two, and then Shaw and Horton were pretty distant longer shots. But they were solidly three and four, which is fun.
Then Horton put together a dominant outing against the Angels, made a little micro-history in the process, and it seems like the national scene started to notice: oh, hey, this young Cubs righty has kinda been, like, the best pitcher in the NL in the second half, hasn’t he?
Within two days, the odds – at least at DK – moved DRAMATICALLY:
Cade Horton is now the NL Rookie of the Year favorite at DraftKings pic.twitter.com/cByisVyTv1
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) August 25, 2025That is just a MONSTER move for, essentially, one start. Clearly, a whole lot of folks saw those long odds on Cade Horton and realized how badly mispriced they were. So a lot of people laid some down on Horton, and the odds moved. A lot.
The question is whether the baseball writers who vote on the actual award will have been so moved, because those aren’t quite the same thing.
Cade Horton and the NL Rookie of the Year Race
At 8-4 with a 2.88 ERA over 93.2 innings (18 games, 17 starts), Cade Horton has put up one of the best seasons so far for any rookie pitcher in baseball. His second half has been otherworldly, and his peripherals have steadily improved as the season has gone on. (Matt Shaw has obviously also been unbelievable in the second half, and Michael just gave him a whole lot of love earlier today.)
Cade Horton bringing it! pic.twitter.com/fI63zzVPVK
— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) August 24, 2025chat, is this good? pic.twitter.com/KeC6rHE4T1
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) August 24, 2025Through their first 7 starts after the break:Jake Arrieta – 201546.1 IP | 1.36 ERA | 25.4 K% | 9.2 BB%Cade Horton – 202537.0 IP | 0.49 ERA | 24.8 K% | 8.0 BB%
— The Wrigley Wire (@TheWrigleyWire) August 25, 2025Right now, by fWAR, Isaac Collins is kinda lapping the field in the NL rookie class, at 2.8. Brewers righty Chad Patrick is at 2.1 Baldwin is next at 2.0, then Brewers infielder Caleb Durbin at 1.7, and then Cade Horton at 1.5.
It’s worth noting that FanGraphs WAR is FIP-based, and Horton’s results have dramatically outpaced his FIP, which is probably going to matter to a lot of voters. I tend to think Patrick is going to lose a lot of votes to his rotation-mate, Jacob Misiorowski, and won’t benefit from having a super hot start and then being kinda meh (he also has a 3-8 record on a great team, and although I don’t care about it, some voters will).
That is to say, as far as the pitching group goes, Horton is definitely in the lead. It could just come down to how hot or not Collins and Baldwin stay over the final month. And, hey, if Matt Shaw keeps hitting like he has been, there’s going to be a lot of heat there, too.
Service Time and Major Awards
Now here’s where things get really interesting for Cade Horton and the Cubs. Did you remember that voting on these awards can impact service time in certain situations?
Rookies who come up and finish first OR SECOND in the Rookie of the Year voting are credited with a full year of service time, regardless of when they came up. So that would apply for both Horton and Shaw (note: Shaw was up to open the year, but he was subsequently optioned down long enough to prevent him from accruing a full year of service time).
Further, recall that the Prospect Promotion Incentive – the thing that gives you a free draft pick if you have a top prospect up all year and he wins an award – does not apply to Horton (or Shaw), because he hasn’t actually been up a full service year.
That means that if Cade Horton (or Matt Shaw) finishes 1 or 2 in the NL Rookie of the Year voting, HE WILL get credited with a full year of service time – his free agency moves from after 2031 to after 2030 – but the Cubs WOULD NOT RECEIVE a draft pick. It’s the double-whammy the Pirates faced a couple years ago with Paul Skenes.
That isn’t to say the Cubs did anything wrong with Cade Horton’s timeline. He came into this year having thrown just 18.0 innings at Triple-A, and having missed most of 2024 with a serious subscapularis/shoulder injury. They were (rightly) going to be cautious with him no matter what, and then when he was ready, they were going to call him up. Service time just wasn’t a consideration. And if Horton thereafter pitches himself into the top two spots of the Rookie of the Year race, then you pat him on the back for contributing so much to the 2025 big league Cubs, and you swallow the sting of losing a year of team control.
It’s just the way the cookie might crumble this year, and it’s not as if anyone is going to be rooting against Horton (or Shaw) down the stretch.
Cade Horton Down the Stretch
Ultimately, the most important thing for Cade Horton and the Chicago Cubs is that he stays healthy and pitches well down the stretch. Everything else flows downstream from that, and registers as a very distant second consideration.
But taking all these topics together, I did have one additional thought.
The Cubs have a legitimate interest in protecting Horton’s arm/inning total the rest of the way, given his past injuries and youth. They would be justified in throttling him down a bit, especially in advance of a postseason run, if they felt it was best for his long-term health and their own postseason success. That necessarily could work against Horton’s support in the Rookie of the Year race, where guys like Collins and Baldwin certainly aren’t going to get throttled down (nor would Shaw, for that matter).
You wonder, then, if there’s an opportunity – a very unlikely one, but maybe a small one – to have an in-season extension conversation.
Why not see about possibly taking some risk off the table for both sides? For the Cubs, the risk of losing an entire year of control because of an awards decision. For Cade Horton, the myriad risks that come with pitching on the way to free agency. Why not have a chat to see if some kind of deal that works for both sides could come together quickly? Then no one has to worry about service time or the consequences of awards, and no one has to be QUITE as precious about innings into the postseason.
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