Seventh in the series. Today we look at the Cubs\u2019 veteran second baseman.<\/p>\n
28-year-old Nico Hoerner, two-time Gold Glover, potential .300 hitter, team leader, is entering the last year of his contract. Odds favor his retention but probably not by much \u2014 there are a lot of wheels spinning.<\/p>\n
Many fans would prefer that Dansby Swanson, subject of the previous profile, be moved somehow, and Nico installed at short, with Matt Shaw or a reasonable equivalent taking over at second. That\u2019s somewhat more unlikely.<\/p>\n
The Cubs would do a deal, at least theoretically, but are floating high demands for Hoerner\u2019s services, and rightly so. Hoerner doesn\u2019t hit for much power, instead preferring the high-average, contact-bat presence, which suits his skillset admirably. He could play in any era of baseball. He\u2019s a \u2018gamer,\u2019 who \u2018always shows up when the chips are down,\u2019 almost to the degree that he\u2019s taken for granted, and some writers have it that he is underappreciated nationally.<\/p>\n
In seven seasons, three of which were partial campaigns, Hoerner<\/a> has amassed a decent 21.8 bWAR (20 fWAR<\/a>), bolstered by his excellent defense and baserunning. He has 6.2 and 5.5 bWAR seasons in his trophy case, but he has yet to appear in the Midsummer Classic.<\/p>\n Nico should be a perennial all-star. That he isn\u2019t lends weight to those writerly complaints. Maybe it isn\u2019t just a narrative.<\/p>\n Hopefully it doesn\u2019t happen with another team. Hoerner could keep this production level well into his thirties, perhaps slowing some but adding a little thump to his plate presence.<\/p>\n Unless the Cubs really dial down the budget for 2027, someone is going to have to beat him out to take over his spot. Matt Shaw likely has the talent to do it, but he\u2019ll have to demonstrate.<\/p>\n With Swanson, Hoerner, Alex Bregman and Michael Busch, the Cubs have perhaps the best defensive infield in the majors. They should be right up there offensively, with three of the four players regularly topping 20 homers and Hoerner flirting with .300, which is a difficult number to dial up these days. He\u2019s penciled in to lead off against left-handers in our current understanding, and that will help promote that, along with allowing him to score even more runs and maybe up his OBP some more as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Seventh in the series. Today we look at the Cubs\u2019 veteran second baseman. 28-year-old Nico Hoerner, two-time Gold…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,70392,4245,161,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-551736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicago-cubs-player-profiles","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116005113875776041","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}