Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Lance Brozdowski on Cade Horton: 'This is his season' (Hour 4)
30 Mar 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Softly, and this is going to do it. Peter over to first, and that's the ball game. And the Nationals come into Wrigley and take two of three to open the season. Not the start to the year the Cubs will have won. No, no, not ideal.
It really is not ideal. This is Rahimi Harris and Grody. That is courtesy of Marquee Sports Network, Boog Shambi and Jim Deshaies, JD, on the call. And another Marquee employee who we always enjoy talking to joins us via Twitch, twitch.tv slash thescorechicago. And our hotline is Lance Brodzowski, Marquee Sports Network player development analyst, co-host of the Cubs Now podcast.
I just think seam head, Lance. You love baseball on a level that is... That is impressive to those of us who love baseball.
I appreciate that. Thank you for having me. Hope you guys are good. It's warm today in Chicago. Oh, my God. Oh, we know.
We're excited.
Oh, yeah.
We're in a chilly studio. In the meantime, not only have you been analyzing, I think, some really great work you've been doing on your TikTok regarding pitches and mixes that a lot of the pitchers of the league are doing, you're also analyzing what you're seeing on the Cubs. What stood out to you after, unfortunately, going down 2-3 to the Nationals?
Cade Horton is the best pitcher on the staff. I said it preseason and I'm standing by it. I just think this is his season. The reason it's funny I liked him heading into the year is that I thought the strikeouts would tick up. Last year he was on a pitch count. He wasn't throwing like more than 80-ish, 85 pitches a start down the stretch.
And as a result of that, he just pounded the zone and got a ton of outs. And he was incredibly effective. One of the best pitchers in baseball. My thesis was that he would lean into more whiff. But we didn't really see that in this Saturday's game where he threw against the Nationals.
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Chapter 2: What insights does Lance Brozdowski provide about Cade Horton?
At least he's not in the division. You know, Lance, let's just keep going rapid fire with the starters. I am looking. I think Cubs fans, I think we're all looking so forward to seeing Edward Cabrera pitch with the Cubs.
What is your scouting report on him from what you have seen in the past with the Marlins and what you saw in spring training and what Cubs fans should expect out of this hard-throwing right-hander?
He's very unlike other pitchers the Cubs have had, and I think that'll be refreshing. I feel like for a while the Cubs have always had these lower velocity guys, not so tantalizing from a, I can't wait to turn the TV on and watch this guy. No offense to anybody who's been in the rotation the last five years, but, you know, I think...
Cabrera is of a different breed he reminds me more of like the you Darvish's and the Jake Arrieta's of years past where it's just insane stuff and sometimes when you watch him it's hard to fully understand how he's getting the ball to move a certain way or like why his changeup is 94 miles per hour so there's gonna be moments I'm excited to see like JD's analysis and boogs just around how odd he is there
There's just not a lot of comps for him in the league. I guess maybe like a Sandy Alcantara is around there, and they both came from that Marlins kind of power change-up era. But he's really fun. He throws everything hard. The velocity is somewhat unorthodox for the Cubs over the last couple of years. He's going to get a lot of strikeouts.
The start I saw when he was down in Arizona and I was doing some stuff for Marquis, I thought he was leaving everything up. So, I mean, he's going to run into some outings where – He gives up some barrels because the changeup is kind of tipping up in the zone. He loves using that almost as like a sinker, an early count pitch.
But there's also going to be games where he strikes out 14, and you're like, what on earth did I just watch? And that, to me, is really exciting. From a more nerdy standpoint – With the Marlins last year, he took off because he stopped throwing his forcing fastball. The Marlins were like, hey, your sinker's better. You can get it in zone equally as much, and it's going to allow less damage.
He threw that a bunch, and his walk rate finally ticked down to more of like a league average level. Prior to that, you go like 22 to 24. We were all just kind of complaining and dreaming on what he could be if he was in the zone more. That is the forcing usage is something I'm curious to see how it unfolds with the Cubs.
The Cubs, I think we're top three or four enforcing fastball usage last season. I do think some of that is influenced by the park they play in and the aggressiveness you can have in the potential to not allow a bunch of barrels and be in zone. Cabrera to me, I think that I don't want as much foreseeing, but I'm also not Tommy hot of being Tyler Zomber.
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Chapter 3: Why is Cade Horton considered the best pitcher on the Cubs staff?
And when he pairs that with the sinker, is it really hard to see – You know, I'm going to try to hop into like the Brewers and Pirates clubhouse later this year and kind of poke around and see like, hey, you saw him in April or June or whatever. Like, what did you describe to me as a lay person what that changeup looks like?
Because it doesn't look like Kyle Hendricks changeup or show to splitter. It's a very different pitch to the point where it's I don't even know if you get classified as a changeup, but that's what we have to do from a classification standpoint, because he already throws a sinker and he already throws a forcing fastball and some other things.
We are nerding out with Lance Przdowski. He is the Marquee Sports Network player development analyst, also the co-host of the Cubs Now podcast. All right, we're nerding out on the pitching. Let's nerd out a little bit on the hitting. I'm so fascinated by Pete Crow Armstrong's start to the season with that new extension in hand. We've already seen him lay down two bunt singles.
We've seen the speed at work. Is this just him saying, hey, look, I know I need to get on base more, in your opinion, or is he just taking what the defense gives him?
It's a combination. You know, that first bunt on opening day, I don't know why the Nats were shifting him over that hard. Like, that feels like something that any team from an advanced standpoint is just going to look at and be like, oh, yeah, you can't play the third baseman at shortstop against him. You just have to put him on the grass.
And you're like, hey, Pete, if you want to do that again, we'll try to throw you out. You know, and then you decrease the probability that's successful. To me, you're right, though. It's really about the OBP. I would bet Pete's aware of this, too. I'm not sure if he's deliberately said, hey, I want to get my OBP up this year. But that is how you unlock, like –
top five MVP votes, if you just want to like look at war, which I think is really how a lot of people vote now for these awards is just kind of staring at those leaderboards. We ran into that with Drake Baldwin over Kate Horton last year.
I don't really know if anyone watched the full season outside of market of those two players, but I think teams, people just looked at the war leaderboard and were just like, no, Drake Baldwin's higher, I guess he's the rookie of the year.
But I'm saying that because the way you unlock the higher rung of performance for him and you make this contract that he just signed looked very team friendly is if he can get on base more, I think we need probably about like a 15 to 20 game sample of his chase rate and some of the other metrics just to understand how he's swinging, where he's swinging.
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Chapter 4: How does Cade Horton's performance compare to last season?
I don't want to, I don't think I've looked yet actually at what his chase rate is and what his OBP is. I want to give it a little more time as opposed to like assuming that one weekend is enough for us to assume that he stopped chasing or he's chasing more. It hasn't changed. So that's really what I'm locked on.
It's just a tough, it's a tough call to make as to whether he's now unlocked this other ability of his game. Um, I don't think it's going to be something that is immediately unlocked, though. Like it may take some time, but I'm encouraged by the fact that he has said this. And Bregman's also said in some press conferences from spring training, like swing decisions are incredibly important.
And the more you can corral Pete into the zone, stop him from chasing, the more damage he's going to do and the more frequently he's going to get on base.
Lance, I'm sorry. I am going to ask you another pitching question here, and I'm going to take it down a level, and that is to ask you about the Cubs' 2023 second rounder, a man by the name of Jackson Wiggins. What do the Cubs have in Jackson Wiggins, and is it inconceivable that we would see him get a start or two this year?
No, I think he's got a shot at getting a start or two. He's really electric. He's a big dude. He's got a higher slot. So I wouldn't comp him to like Ben Brown, but that aesthetic of pitcher where it's super tall on the mound, a little over the top, and he rides his fastball really well, throws really hard. The thing with him is just the fastball quality is so exceptionally good.
The problem is that he hasn't really zoned the pitch enough right now, and I believe even in that first start, at Iowa that he had over the weekend or was that Friday? I don't remember off the top of my head, but that is, that is the thing to watch. He's been a little sporadic in terms of command. When I did, I have a sub stack and I did like a top 40 pitching prospect ranked.
And he, and this guy from New York, the Yankees, Carlos Lagrange, who kind of, popped all over the place on social media in spring training because he was throwing like one-on-one. They feature somewhat similar approaches from like, hey, I have this insane fastball. I'm going to throw it like 60% of the time. The difference is that LeGrande is just striking the ball more. He's in the zone more.
So you can project him a little more aggressively as a starting pitcher. The key for Jackson Wiggins this year is really like, Am I confident enough to start him so that he's not going to walk three or four guys in the bigs against major league lefties and righties? The quality of the fastball is so good. It's just more what I was talking about with Cabrera.
I'm just like, if you're roughly in the box, man, we are going to be very good with that pitch. Like we don't need, we can get to the point of halves, you know, like maybe outer third, inner third versus righties or something along those lines up in a way.
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Chapter 5: What are the expectations for Edward Cabrera as a new Cubs pitcher?
Ben Johnson has spoken. And while I understand his sentiment or trying to move on himself, I have bad news for you, coach. You're going to hear about this game for the rest of your life because it was the Green Bay Packers and it was the first playoff win in 15 years. And I do think that the head coach definitely needs to move forward because we've talked a lot about what he wants to improve on.
But you can't escape that win. You just won't be able to until you get more in the playoffs. This is where you are. So I'm sorry, but people are going to keep bugging you about this and talking to you about you making them happy about the Bears for the first time in a very long time.
As the Bears reporter, I will keep that in mind with my lines of questioning to Ben Johnson out at Hallis Hall, but to Layla's point, I'll talk about a winning Bears season whenever I damn well please on this microphone.
However, and I have done this many, many times, I've gone through the list of Bears winning seasons, which most of the time, most of the time in Bears history are followed directly by a, as Marshall is doing, the drop-off
the table sign language there it goes off the table 2018 my last example and you guys know how much how fond i was of the 2018 season it dropped off the table in 2019 and subsequently for that entire matt naggy regime except for the one weird ass 500 playoff game against the new orleans saints doesn't count that's fine i am not going to argue that but ghastly
But if that's the message to the players and to the coaches, then guess what? I am great with it because it sucks when you have so much hope after a winning season and then it's like, what happened? Where did it go? We're in the 6-3 loss to the Green Bay Packers on opening night after the 2018 season. No!
So good for Ben Johnson, but bad for Ben Johnson because we'll continue to talk about winning seasons here on The Score.
There is a former SCORE employee who said that she got to serve Ben Johnson last week, and she posted Jenna Duddleston on her Instagram, and she said at the very end, she waited until the end, but she said, thank you for making me happy as a Bears fan and having the most fun I've had watching football in years. And you know what?
It's been past a week, and I think Jenna should be allowed to have that conversation with Ben Johnson. So, yeah, as the media will comply, because that's typically what we do. It's diplomacy and whatnot. But he's going to hear about it from fans for eternity.
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