The Rundown Lite: MLB Limits Prop Bets, Horton Still Big Winner in Curious ROY Race, Thanking Our Vets, Sisu 2 Trailer
Pitching was the topic of the day across Cubdom, starting with their rumored free-agent pursuits and moving to Kyle Hendricks calling it a career before eventually turning to Cade Horton finishing second in NL Rookie of the Year voting. We’ll get to that last topic in a bit, but I first wanted to circle back to a topic that is only Cubs-adjacent at best. Remember when there was talk about them being interested in Josh Naylor and/or Emmanuel Clase when both were with the Guardians two years ago?
While getting Naylor might have worked out well, they sure dodged a bullet by failing to pull off a deal for the reliever. It sure doesn’t look like either pitcher involved in the scandal will play in MLB again, and jail time is a distinct possibility. Luis Ortiz might end up getting the worst of it because Emmanuel may be able to plead his felony down to a Clase misdemeanor.
Jokes aside, MLB is now left trying to close the barn doors after the horses got out. The league and its sportsbook partners — imagine saying that 10 years ago — have agreed to limit prop bets on individual pitches to $200 apiece and ban them from parlays. This half-measure feels to me like when the Cubs figured out a way to limit the number of browser windows you could open on a single IP address to get around the virtual waiting room for single-game ticket sales back in the day.
The only way to curtail this stuff is to eliminate the possibility. I mean, these guys got caught throwing intentional balls for what amounted to pocket change. What’s to stop someone from laying multiple $200 bets, or from using a network of co-conspirators to do the same thing? MLB may have locked the door, but they still left a window open.
Horton’s ROY Results
Many felt the NL Rookie of the Year voting was rigged when Cade Horton fell short, but the BBWAA voters tasked with naming the winner clearly favored Drake Baldwin. The Braves catcher earned 21 of 30 first-place votes and was named second on the other nine, so it’s not as though a handful of voters swayed the results. That said, I found it mildly curious that four voters had Horton third.
Maybe I’ll ask Dan Szymborski and Keith Law what went into their respective decisions. I’d say the same for Meg Rowley of FanGraphs and Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but I’ve never interacted with either of them before. I’m sure more than one person will automatically chalk the latter up to homerism, and that’s entirely possible.
What’s far, far more curious to me is how MLB.com’s Paige Leckie left Horton off her ballot entirely, making her the only voter to have him lower than third. She listed Matt Shaw in the third spot, making her one of two voters to name him at all. The other was David O’Brien of The Athletic, who voted Shaw fifth. As noted by one of our commenters, Leckie earned her BA in Multiplatform Journalism in 2020 from *drumroll* the University of Maryland.
Voting for Baldwin were both of Atlanta’s BBWAA voters, Mark Bowman and David O’Brien
Voting for Horton: Both Chicago writers, 1 Cincinnati writer, one Philly writer, both San Diego writers, one San Fran writer, one Arizona writer, one Colorado writer pic.twitter.com/Y58ASqzefe
— Lindsay Crosby, big baseball guy (@CrosbyBaseball) November 11, 2025
Yes, the same institution that produced Shaw. Though their respective Terps tenures did not overlap, it’s easy to see how someone could jump to an accusation of blatant favoritism. Not that it mattered to the overall results, but it calls into question the fidelity of the process. Not nearly as much so as the topic above, just carries a strong scent of ick.
Overall, I think this was a matter of Horton coming up a little later than Baldwin and not being an everyday player. And even though postseason results aren’t supposed to factor, I can’t help but wonder whether Horton’s rib injury impacted the voting. It sure seemed as though he had plenty of momentum from that 8-1 record and MLB-best 1.03 ERA in the second half, but it wasn’t enough to put him over the top.
The good news for Horton is that he’s still a big winner because finishing second grants him a full year of service time that he would not have otherwise earned due to the timing of his call-up. That means he’ll hit arbitration and start getting paid more earlier than usual based on his situation, which the Cubs surely would rather have avoided. What’s more, they miss out on draft pick rewards from prospect promotion incentives since they didn’t call him up right away.
Not that anyone really expected Horton to come up and do what he did, unlike with Paul Skenes and the Pirates last season. Who knows what will change in the next CBA, but it’s worth wondering in the meantime whether the immediate success of pitchers like Skenes, Horton, and Trey Yesavage of the Blue Jays will change the way organizations view promotions.
Thank you, veterans
I always text my brother a simple “Thank you” every Veterans Day, and I often get a chance to see him at the program my wife’s elementary school hosts. No program for him this year, but I did fire off the text and we had a little back-and-forth about some of the fun that comes with entering middle age. Below are some pictures of my brother during his USMC service in Iraq, my great-uncle Lawrence serving in the Army during WWII, my great-grandfather Claud McLaughlin’s dog tags from WWI, and my great-great-great-grandfather George Wilson’s discharge from his service in the Union Army during the Civil War.
And here is my great-great-great-grandfather George Wilson’s discharge from the Union Army in 1864. pic.twitter.com/fLDAU3ZMFY
— Evan Altman (@DEvanAltman) November 11, 2025
Seeing a trailer for the movie Fury several years ago spurred me to research Uncle Lawrence’s service, as I knew he’d driven a tank during the Battle of the Bulge. To this day, I think it’s one of the more interesting pieces I’ve ever written. If nothing else, it was a lot of fun to explore.
Thank you to all those who have served or are currently serving.
Sisu: Road to Revenge Trailer
I was planning to discuss this trailer even before realizing the ties to the day, but I suppose that’s how things work sometimes. The original Sisu (2022) told the story of Aatami Korpi, a legendary Finnish Army commando who is simply trying to find peace during the Lapland War. He ends up having to defend himself against an onslaught from a Waffen-SS platoon, with some truly wild action scenes ensuing.
The sequel sees Korpi returning to Soviet-occupied Karelia to relocate his family home in the hopes of resuming some kind of normalcy. In his way is Red Army officer Igor Draganov, the man who murdered Korpi’s family and is determined to finish the job. Draganov is played by Stephen Lang, who also stars as Colonel Miles Quaritch in the Avatar movies.
This film features some absolutely bonkers action sequences and quite a bit of ass-kickery in both directions for the protagonist. Think of it like John Wick, but outdoors and with all manner of military vehicles instead of just guns and hand-to-hand combat.
