On his way home from the OU baseball facilities Wednesday evening, Skip Johnson’s phone buzzed. On the other line was a pitching pupil and one of the Chicago Cubs’ top prospects in Cade Horton, a leader from OU's 2022 College World Series runner-up squad.

Cade Horton knew pretty quickly something was up. Triple-A Iowa pitching coach Tony Cougoule summoned Horton from his Toledo, Ohio, hotel room to head up to manager Marty Pevey’s room because he had been named the league’s pitcher of the month.

In the last 25 years, the Cubs have originally signed and developed just three homegrown pitchers who became All-Stars for them: Mark Prior, Jeff Samardzija and Justin Steele. The most recent of that trio,