Coming off his finest big league season, could Nico Hoerner be facing a crossroads in his career as a Chicago Cub?
The team’s Gold Glove Award-winning second baseman (for the second time in three seasons), will be eligible for free agency after 2026. Hoerner was runner up to Philadelphia’s Trea Turner for the NL batting title and finished third in the league with 178 hits.
“(I’m) proud of the ability to be available so much … you don’t win this award unless you’re on the field a ton.”
Nico Hoerner won the NL Gold Glove after coming back from off-season surgery. pic.twitter.com/WWmYShN7Z1
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) November 3, 2025
The 28-year-old Northern California native signed a three-year, $35 million contract with the North Siders prior to the 2024 season and will earn $12 million in 2026. If you ask the most ardent Cub fan if Hoerner should continue his career with the team, most would likely respond with, “are you joking?”
Hoerner, who sabermetrics people have some disdain for, does not light up the OPS-minded analyst when it comes to his baseball slugging or WAR numbers. His 6.2 WAR in 2026 was his highest as a major league player. However, his OPS was 170 points lower than second baseman leader Ketel Marte‘s .893 mark this past season. Marte won the Silver Slugger award for second baseman.
When it comes to clutch hitting however, few compare to Hoerner, who posted the second-best batting average with runners in scoring position (.375) in MLB. In the postseason, his .419 batting average was second among all players and his .973 OPS ranked 11th.
The Cubs have no players on the 40-man roster other than shortstop Dansby Swanson signed past 2026. The threat of a lockout in December of 2026 has owners expressing caution to their front offices about offering long-term contracts. This is fundamentally based economics with an unknown compensation system that could include a salary cap, with both basement and ceiling numbers.
Hoerner could be impacted by this dilemma in numerous ways. No. 1 would be a look at his position and possibly others that could play second base at a high level.
Most Cubs evaluation personnel believed that third baseman Matt Shaw was a projected second baseman in the major leagues. Shaw shocked the Cubs by playing Gold Glove-caliber third base in 2025. The 24-year-old infielder is under team control for six more seasons. James Triantos (who was just added to the 40-man roster Tuesday) is another prospect potentially ticketed for second or third base in the future.
[State of the Cubs: An in-depth look at the second base position]
A trade would be another avenue that the Cubs brass could explore. Hoerner is the most attractive position player the club could offer other than Pete Crow-Armstrong and Michael Busch. Both Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki have no-trade clauses in their contracts.
“Our club loves Hoerner,” an NL scout told me in September. “He is the most underrated player on the Cubs. He can beat you with a clutch base hit or with his legs. He’s the best baserunner on a very good baserunning club. Clutch hitting and moving players over make him a throwback type. My friends in the Cubs system tell me he is an absolute leader on that team. Winner is what I call Nico Hoerner.”
The third and maybe most appealing choice may be to sign Hoerner to an extension. A No. 1 pick in the 2018 amateur draft, Hoerner made his debut with the team in late 2019 when they needed an emergency shortstop for the injured Javier Báez. Hoerner handled the position professionally even with little pro experience — a preview of his always-prepared style.
According to player sources, it was a Hoerner speech to the whole team that helped inspire the Cubs to fight back and force a Game 5 against the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS. That commentary came after the Cubs lost the first two games of the series.
Cubs brass will be angling for the best situation for them and the players like Hoerner who are running out of contract.
“We are always looking for ways to make our club better,” Cubs GM Carter Hawkins said on WSCR radio’s “Inside the Clubhouse” last Saturday. “One of those ways is to extend contracts for our players. This is something we look at almost every offseason. We are in a position right now with our young players that it might make more sense for doing that now. We will explore that. We have done this in the past and it sometimes is never reported. Sometimes there are reports of this that never happened.”
(The Cubs offered an extension as high as $90 million to Crow-Armstrong last May.)
Hoerner has been an outstanding player and person as a Cub for over six seasons. Time will tell if that fine career will continue for Hoerner at Clark and Addison beyond 2026.
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