Cubs sign eight of 10 first picks from 2022 MLB Draft
Cade Horton is officially a Cub.
The Cubs announced Saturday that they had signed eight of their first 10 picks from the 2022 First-year player draft, highlighted by Horton, the seventh-overall pick in last week’s draft.
The team also signed infielder and third round pick Christopher Paciolla and six right handed pitchers — Brandon Birdsell (fifth round), Will Frisch (sixth round), Nick Hull (seventh round), Mason McGwire (eighth round), Connor Noland (ninth round) and Brody McCollough (10th round).
Horton dominated in the postseason for Oklahoma, allowing 2 or less runs in his 5 outings and posting a 14.22 K/9 ratio. He was a two-way player for the Sooners, hitting .235 this past season, playing primarily third base and shortstop.
New threads🖊 pic.twitter.com/KQTxSfeV2R
— Cade Horton (@cadehorton14) July 23, 2022
Second-round pick and left-handed pitcher Jackson Ferris and fourth-round pick, right-handed pitcher Nazier Mulé are the top 10 picks that have yet to sign.
Ferris was the 19th overall draft prospect by MLB.com and went 8-0 with a 1.33 ERA and 103 strikeouts in 54.1 innings over 10 games in his senior season at IMG Academy in Florida. He is committed to Ole Miss.
The team hoped to save some money in signing Horton to a below-slot deal, allowing them to use some of those savings to sway Ferris away from his commitment to Ole Miss.
“This morning when we sat down with Jed [Hoyer] and Carter [Hawkins] and kinda mapped out what in our minds would be an ideal road map for how the draft would unfold, the first round, Cade was our prime target,” Cubs VP of scouting Dan Kantrovitz said the night of the draft. “Then in the 2nd round, it’s hard to have visibility so you don’t really put too much stock in it, but Jackson was the No. 1 target there as well, thinking that we’d have a little bit of money potentially to spread around. It ended up coming to fruition.”
The Cubs have yet to come to terms with any of their 11th through 20th round picks and have until Aug. 1 to come to terms with Mulé and Ferris.