Nico Hoerner, still working on it

Before they fell into the turbulent Wake of the White-Hot Bewers, the Cubs flirt for a large part of the season with the best record in baseball. You know the highlights: Pete Crow-Armstrong Flies through the air and smacks homers. Kyle Tucker Is a superstar that makes a name for himself before he touches a free desk. Michael Busch Has its own mini-breakout. Seiya Suzuki is a consistent threat of power. Dansby Swanson is a metronome in the form of a glove-first short stop.

You can continue to name names for a while, in fact, before you come to the two longest hitters of the Cubs. Ian Happ Back in 2017. He switched from a superutility role to the corner field of the corner, while he was almost a decade in the middle of the line-up, a regular division, although rarely an all-star. However, he is not the focus of today’s article. That would be the other longest informed cub, Nico Hoerner.

Hoerner got a cup of coffee at the end of the 2019 season, played a bench role in 2020 and was repeatedly injured, just when he seemed to settle as a starter in 2021. He has since been a locked up daily man, since a year in Shortstop and then signed with the team in the Free Office after the second after Swanson. And between a succession of newer and more exciting Cubs debut and the earth-of-al-Trades nature of his play, the star of star of Horner is often overlooked. But overlooked or not, Horner is a star, and so I thought I would investigate his consistent excellence while he breaks through another quiet season.

It is appropriate that the last two Fangraphs articles about Horner, both by Davy Andrews, are about homeless seasons and always making contact. Those two things perfectly explain the extremes of the game of Hoerner. But despite those two extremes, the attacking skills of Horner are in fact almost exactly average.

His career 102 WRC+ does not even start to describe it. Hoerner has never had a season with a WRC+ above 108. From 2021, the first year he was stuck, he never had a season under a 102 WRC+. He has been 6% above the average OBP wise in his career, while he is 7% below average when it comes to slugging. Are Babip? An extremely normal .306; There is nothing strange or apparently untenable here.

Many defensive wizards of Minor League try to put together attacking matches such as those of Hoerner. Almost all fail. Nick Allen” Nicky Lopez” David Fletcher” Nick Madrigal” Joey Wild” Isiah Kiner atmosphere – Some of these guys are solid players, but none of them has ever succeeded in making the powerless, Whiffless game work. They just didn’t allow pitchers; A steadily diet of fastballs in the battle zone early and annoying breaking pitches of affordable counts is simply too well oiled from a combination.

It is very difficult to stay both picky and contact -oriented. The pollution of tough fields is all good and good, but if you have the habit of swinging defensively, the transition to chasing pitches outside the zone is both disastrous and difficult to avoid. Something generally allows, whether they are too many strikeouts or not enough walks. Those are not normally disqualifying problems, but they are problematic for players of this general style. Making so much contact generally includes fully sacrificing power; For example, Hoerner is located in the seventh percentile for bat speed and the sixth percentile for a hard rate. If you never take walks, or if you hit too much, the math will not be correct.

The balance has always been kept for Hoerner. He follows about as often as he did at the start of his career, and contact with a spectacular rate just as always. See how consistent his performance is:

I compared that cohort of contact-first middle infielers? Their numbers usually have the same pattern: a higher zone speed in time, a higher pursuit speed and lower K-BB%, a lower ISO. All these together are logical, which naturally flow from the limitations of the Slagman. But Hoerner just didn’t do that. He has kept his aggression almost perfectly unchanged, even if he sees more strikes; He runs less than ever, but also falls out less than ever. If pitchers want to throw him a lot of things in the zone, that’s fine; He will put it in the game. It is logical that Hoerner almost never runs – with a career -iso of .100, the opposition should really have him put the ball instead of giving him a free base, so as a pitcher can Find the zone against Horner, they will. But it is also logical that he almost never hits, because he makes a lot of contact and does not swing on poor pitches.

That does not sound like great skills, and it is not in truth. It is almost perfect on average in the aggregated. But perfect average is great! Baseball is difficult! Hoerner’s bat was always the sketched part of his profile as a prospect. When he comes to base, he is a frequent and successful thief. He has been fifth in the Majors in Steels since 2022, and he succeeds with a clip of 86% when he leaves. He is instinctive on the Basepaths and also fast. He is undoubtedly one of the best Baserunners in the large competitions, year after year. And that is not even his best skill.

Defensively, Hoerner is a rarity, a real short stop that plays second base. He does this because Swanson contains short, but there is no doubt about Horner’s Bonafids. He was great in 2022 and is nothing but excellent, even over -qualified, even in second place. The best defensive second Honkman are Zo – Brice Turang, Andres Gimenez, Bryson Stott and Marcus Semien all fit the bill. Somewhere along the line they gave a superior defender, but it was out of choice instead of necessity. Most teams do not have this luxury because they play their excellent shortstop defenders, well, short stop. Just like the other four, Hoerner is fantastic with the glove. He has been kidden, Rangy and has enough arm power to make the entire package work. Between many games and playing good, he is the 10th most valuable defender, period, since the beginning of the 2022 season. The boys for him? A pile of great catchers and elite shortstops.

What do you get if your elite defense and baseunning combines with an average bat? About four wins per year, it turns out. The war of Hoerner has been just as consistent as his WRC+. He checked in with 4.3 in 2022, 4.6 in 2023 and 3.9 in 2024. He is on a pace for 4.1 war in 2025. That may not sound so much – he has never had a breakout season – but there are just not many players in baseball so good. It can be shocked to hear that in the past four years, Hoerner has been 22nd among all the batters in the war William Contreras” Kettle mars” Corbin CarrollAnd Xander Bogaerts.

It seems strange to see him so high on the list, right? It certainly does it for me. When I look at the War Leaderboards, I tend to demand the defensive specialists. The way we calculate their value is messy, and it always seems as if some man is to save a babip-en-oaa-driven striking season. Heck, Nicky Lopez, which I used earlier in this article as an unflattering comparison, has a 5.5-war season in his rear view. But Hoerner just keeps puffing. He is not a bit of a bit. He is good every year across the board, without failure. That in itself is a striking achievement.

Here is another way to think about it: as I said, there are 21 players who have built up more offensive war since the beginning of 2022 than Hoerner. six Win season. The types of players who suffocate this classification are generally huge stars with MVP ambitions. Hoerner has never received an MVP mood. Heck, he never even made an All-Star team.

When the Cubs take the postseason stage in October, the promotional places will probably focus on Pete Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker. Why shouldn’t they? Those guys are great and they each run in a spectacular season. Hoerner does not get a top invoicing; He will not even be in second place in the tent. But he is one of the very best players in baseball, year after year, and always in the same way. So here is Nico Horner – the star that you didn’t know you couldn’t see.