Owen Caission: emerging dynasty player

For many of us, when we have a prospect in the minors and see him raking all season, we wait at the parent club to finally see what everyone sees and promoting him to the show.

That was the case for the many Dynasty League owners when it came to the outfielder of Chicago Cubs Owen Caission. The only thing he has done the entire season is the Bal Smash for Thuis Runs, but he stayed in Triple-A week after week. Well, the waiting is finally over, because the Cubs CAIDE promotes earlier this week and immediately had him in the starting line -up.

Caission is not the perfect prospect. If he were, he would have been up for a long time ago. But he is a very good prospect whose playing time was blocked because of the amount of depth in the Outfield of Chicago.

Time to view Owen Caissie and see why he is an emerging dynasty player.

Career statistics

*Until Thursday

Way to the show

The San Diego Padres set up Owen Caiss in 2000 with the 45th general selection, making Caission the first Canadian player who was selected in that concept. After signing, Caission had to stay in Canada to train when the Minor League season was wiped out because of Covid.

While caission was drawn up by De Padres, he never set up a uniform with one of the affiliated companies of the team, because he was traded to the Cubs in December as part of the package that Yu Darvish and Victor Caratini sent to San Diego.

Cassie started the 2021 season in Rookie Ball and ended the year in class A, and is in principle one level a year progressed to make his debut with the Cubs last week. While in the minors, Caiss played a total of 499 games and cut .280/.384/.489 with 81 homers, 298 RBI and 33 steals. This season in Triple-a Iowa he hit .289/.389/.566 with 22 homers and 52 RBI in 93 before he came to the Cubs.

The tools

Owen Caissie is an interesting batter. On the one hand, he has a high strikeout rate, thanks in part to a long swing. In the minors he had a strikeout percentage of 29% and this season it was at 28.2%. Have benefited opposite teams from the fact that caation can be a bit too aggressive on the record. But at the same time, Caiss has a strong knowledge of the stroke zone. This season his running speed in Triple-A Iowa was 13% and his career walk on the farm is 14%.

Given his career, Minor League is average .280 and his OBP is .384 in the minors, I think he can be a .260/.350 Hitter in the Majors. In short, when it comes to the AVG/OBP department, Caiss will be on average – he will not kill you in those two areas, but he will not compete with the competition leaders there either. The problem with caation now is his splits against left -handed pitchers versus right -handed pitchers.

A left -handed, Caissie Rockt vs. Righties while he cut them in Iowa this year .312/.402/.637. But against lefts he is a completely different batter and cuts .235/.369/.388. Amazingly, in 103 sheet performances against left -handed pitchers, he only pulled the ball in the air once. He does not suddenly get better in that area against Major League -throwers.

Now expect that caation will sit against left -handed pitchers. But on the road I expect that he makes the required adjustments and becomes usable against the left and is not part of a platoon system.

The Power Department is where Caissie will shine. During his career in the Minor League, he has on average every 22.4 battles on average thanks to his enormous raw power that he is just breaking. This is a player who can easily hit 30 gayers per season.

If you look into his figures this year, they explain how much strength he generates. His maximum exit speed was 113.3 mph and he was 110 km / h 11 times this season. His average EV was 91.2 mph, while his hard hit% was 51.5%. There are a large number of players who can post such songs, but caission can cause damage because he lifts the ball well. He had a flight ball percentage of 35.5% at Iowa compared to a ground ball percentage of 38.1%.

Owen Caissie comes on 6-foot-3 and is not a wood player on the basic paths. He is actually quite quickly and will be able to steal some bases. But I don’t see him becoming an important basic stealer. Although he has stolen 33 career bases, he has also been thrown away 23 times. A success rate of 59% in the minors is not a great sign that he will become an above -average basic steamer in the Majors.

He may be able to wipe a bag here and there, but I don’t see him being a player who has regularly reached double digits every season.

The verdict

An interesting fact about Caiss is that as it has advanced by the CUBS system, his prospective list has fallen. In 2022 and 2023, only Baseball Prospectus (BP) left him arranged as a top 100 prospect, and ranked it at #67 and #80 for those two seasons. In 2024 he broke in the ranking of the Baseball America on #47 and MLB on #47, while BP ranked him at #65.

Before the start of this season, Baseball America Caissched as the 64th best prospect, MLB had him at #54 and BP ranked him at #77. Why the fall in the ranking?

Well, in 2022 in Double-A, Caission .289/.398/.519, leading Baseball America and MLB to finally place him in their top 100 ranking lists. But in 2023 at the Triple-A level, the figures of Caiss fell a bit when he cut .278/.375/.472 with 19 gays and 75 RBI. But it would be wise to take into account that he was on average 5.4 years younger than his competition. At Triple-A he hit this season .289/.389/.566 with 22 gays and 52 RBI in 93 games.

I expect that he will first struggle with the Cubs and even be a depth player, which gives three to four starts a week to give the other outfielders a breathing break. Ultimately, later this year or before 2026, Caissie will be a mainstay in the line -up unless it is traded. Then he becomes a mainstay in the line -up of that team. Caission has shown the possibility to make adjustments during his time in the minors, and there is no reason to think that he cannot do this at the Major League level and deliver at least 30 gay people per year.

Thank you for reading and come back next week.